


Beat the Devil

by sanidine



Series: Beat the Devil [1]
Category: NXT, WWE, World Wrestling Entertainment
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Drinking, Drug Use, F/F, F/M, Gen, M/M, Past Relationship(s), Poverty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-19
Updated: 2016-10-21
Packaged: 2018-08-16 01:48:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 31
Words: 40,289
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8081914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sanidine/pseuds/sanidine
Summary: Everyone is just doing their best. Alternatively - everything happens for a reason, but sometimes the reason is that you are stupid and make bad decisions.





	1. Monday Morning Coming Down

**Author's Note:**

> I am challenged myself to write 31 drabbles between now and the end of October 2016, 1000 word minimum each to get some of these weird ideas out of my head. All of them will be in the same general AU setting, covering a bunch of different characters. They won't be in chronological order, but there is going to be some continuity since certain events are related. 
> 
> Rated M overall for language and themes. I'll add a  
> (characters - quick summary)  
> Specific warnings  
> for each chapter because otherwise I think the header bar for this fic will get super hard to parse
> 
> 1\. Monday Morning Coming Down (Dean Ambrose, Sami Zayn - reunions)  
> 2\. Never Quite Free (Braun Strowman, Wyatt Family - faith healing)  
> 3\. Good Hearted (Rhyno & Heath Slater - babysitting)  
> 4\. Broom People (Xavier Woods, Big E, Kofi Kingston - hoarder house)  
> 5\. Nightcall (Sami Zayn - night driving)  
> 6\. Welcome Home (Dean Ambrose, Heath’s kids - oil change)  
> 7\. Get It (Neville & Dolph Ziggler, Dean Ambrose - first ‘date’)  
> 8\. Dirt in the Ground (Brock Lesnar - hunting)  
> 9\. Circle Be Unbroken (Big E - old home movies)  
> 10\. Wild Things (Dean Ambrose & Seth Rollins - underage drunk sledding)  
> 11\. Control (Bray Wyatt, Luke Harper - religious mania)  
> 12\. One Piece At A Time (Heath & Rhyno, Dean, Heath’s kids - demolition derby)  
> 13\. Rumor Has It (Kane - old scars)  
> 14\. Cold Water (Dolph Ziggler & Neville, Alexa Bliss, Blake, Murphy - swimming hole)  
> 15\. Kingdoms of Rain (Dean Ambrose - flu season)  
> 16\. White Cedar (Jason Jordan & Chad Gable - health insurance)  
> 17\. Out Of Range (Dean Ambrose, Daniel Bryan - road construction)  
> 18\. Love Like This (Alexa Bliss & Nia Jax, Buddy Murphy - two a.m.)  
> 19\. The Man Comes Around (Luke Harper - judgment day)  
> 20\. Night Light (Dean Ambrose, Chris Jericho - bar darts)  
> 21 & 22\. Love Of The Common People (Heath & Rhyno, Dean, Heath’s kids - birthday party)  
> 23\. Hear The Planets (Stardust - meth lab)  
> 24\. Common Ground (Big Cass, ensemble - emergency room)  
> 25\. Step Right Up (Sami/Finn, Dean - country fair)  
> 26\. All We Know (Ensemble - bonfire)  
> 27\. Give It Away (Baron Corbin - ‘adult novelty shop’)  
> 28\. Always Gold (Dean Ambrose, Sami Zayn - drive-in movies)  
> 29\. FM Waves Of The Heart (Alexa Bliss/Nia Jax, Blake, Murphy - changes)  
> 30\. Turn The Key (Heath Slater - empty space)  
> 31\. Black Flies (Dean Ambrose - bad trip)
> 
> Update: [CHECK OUT THIS AMAZING FANART](http://arnoldhorshack.tumblr.com/post/152214726333)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (Dean Ambrose, Sami Zayn - reunions)  
> drinking, implied drug use

Dean woke up before the sun on Monday morning, more out of reflex than any conscious effort since he was face down and naked on his ratty couch. There was a half empty bottle resting on the linoleum right next to where his fingertips brushed the floor and sure, the beer was piss warm. But it was still beer.

Dean could hang drywall in his sleep and it wasn't like he could drive anywhere anyways, so. Fuck it. Of course he drank the beer, and the rest of the half-empties that were scattered around his kitchen. Dean yawned and scrubbed his hands across his face, flinching a little bit when his fingers bumped against the bruises that he'd already forgotten about.

Dean couldn't exactly remember having people over the night before, but he never bought Rolling Rock on his own and the trailer was way too much of a fucking disaster for him to be the only responsible party. His suspicions were confirmed when he wandered into the bathroom to find that there was a pile of broken green glass in his shower and a bunch of threats against the government written on his mirror in soap.

So. Dean could be fairly sure Konnor and Viktor had stopped by, even if he didn’t remember any of it. For sure the only reason Dean’s wallet was still there was because there wasn't anything in it other than his ID.

Maybe he did need to get his shit together a little bit. The Sunday night blackout and the Monday morning breakfast beers didn't strike Dean as a problem; knowing that he had been hanging out with those fucking tweakers again sure did.

With one eye in the microwave clock, Dean threw on the first set of clothes he could find and grabbed his tool belt out of the cabinet where he'd hid it and made his way down to the 7-11 on the corner where Daniel always picked him up on the way to work.

It wasn't light enough yet for the world to be anything other than watery shades of grey, all the fine details obscured by a low fog that would burn off as soon as the sun rose but in that moment made everything seem hazy and strange. Dean snapped off a quick salute at the looming figure of the water tower as he passed beneath it, same as he did every morning. There was a dog barking in the distance, over in the direction of the Walmart - low and rough, so perfectly steady and continuous that it sounded almost mechanical.

When Dean got to the gas station it was JJ behind the counter instead of Chad, so Dean had to double check and make sure he had enough change in his pockets to cover both his coffee and his smokes before he got to the register. JJ had been being a dick ever since the one time when Dean had found himself short a buck and dumped the entire Take-A-Penny tray onto the counter. Now JJ hid the spare change each morning when Dean came into the gas station, which. Dean couldn't really blame him.

Still, JJ’s uptight nature meant that he was way more fun to fuck with than Chad. So Dean took his time counting out his change, painstakingly slow as JJ rolled his eyes and tapped his fingers on the edge of the register.

“Three dollars and five cents, three dollars and ten cents. Oh shit, almost missed these pennies! Three dollars and eleven, twelve, thirteen …”

Dean loved messing with JJ - the ever growing expression of annoyance on his face was a balm to Dean’s weary soul. But it meant that Dean was distracted enough that he didn't even realize someone was in line behind him until the guy cleared his throat, awkward.

“I could, uh. If you don't have enough I could cover it for you?”

Dean turned around with a smart ass remark ready on his tongue. Then he saw who it was and Dean dropped the rest of his handful of change, some of the coins jingling and rolling before JJ slapped them flat against the countertop.

“Holy shit! Sami Zayn? I haven't seen you since what, eighth grade?”

Sami didn't look much different than the dorky ginger kid that Dean remembered  Taller and older , sure. But the button up shirt and the name tag clipped to the pocket were right in line with what Dean would have figured a grown up Sami would look like, if he’d have ever thought about it.

“Yeah.” Sami rubbed at the back of his neck, looking sheepish. “So, uh. Good to see you again.”

Dean smiled back. He never thought too hard about his appearance so it was weird that he was suddenly very aware of what Sami must have seen when he looked at Dean.

If not for the tool belt slung around Dean's hips, he probably would have looked like he just didn't have a job at all. He had on the same sweatshirt he had worn to work every day for the past month, grey with dust and smeared all over with white streaks of drywall mud. Dean actually owned more than one pair of jeans but the were all more brown than blue, dirty enough that they never came clean no matter how often Dean went to the laundromat. Which was, in all fairness, not particularly often

Also, Dean realized that since his shower had been full of broken glass when he woke up that he must have still smelled like the inside of a beer bottle. At six in the morning. On a Monday. And he still had a bruise purpling his cheek and a scab on his split lip from where that asshole Ziggler had kicked him in the face Friday night. Dean would have tried to make a joke about Sami catching him on a bad day, but he couldn’t get the words to come together in a way that didn't just sound sad as fuck.

“He has enough money.” JJ chimed in, breaking the awkward silence as he finished sorting Dean’s coins into the cash register. JJ was a consistent motherfucker who always counted all the money before he slid the the cigarettes across to where Dean could grab them. The red and white packaging was stark for a second before Dean shoved it in his pocket, harsh against the a candy colored rainbow of scratch off tickets trapped beneath the glass countertop. “He's just being an ass.”

Dean waited by the door while Sami payed for his stuff, said ‘Thank You’ to JJ like the polite human being that Dean remembered from middle school. Dean walked along with him as they crossed the empty parking lot, out to the gas pump islands. “So what brings you back around here? I thought you’d moved.”

“Yeah, my mom got a tenure track position at the state college.” Sami explained. “I only moved back a couple of weeks ago. I'm doing quality control down at the chemical plant now.”

“Didn't you wanna, like, be in a band or something?” Dean had known that Sami was a nerd, but he was still a little surprised.

“Yeah, for a while.” Sami shrugged “Turned out I had a talent for chemistry though.”

“Sami Zayn! Brain the size of a planet!” Dean crowed, only joking a little bit, secretly pleased at the way that the Sami’s ears went pink.

“Something like that.”

“Or the size of a moon or something. Whatever.”

The gas pump clicked, and Dean gulped down half of his coffee in the time it took Sami to nudge the gas pump up to the next round dollar and get the cap screwed back on his tank. “Listen, I've got to get going or I'm gonna be late. You want to hang out sometime? I'm glad I ran into you.”

“Fuck yeah man, that would be sweet. You're gonna have to tell me all your crazy college stories.”

Dean grabbed one of the industrial strength Sharpies out of his tool belt and pushed his left sleeve up to the elbow. The cap of the marker was already well worn from the way that Dean always pulled it off with his teeth.

“What’s your number?”

“Uh. I could just write it on the back of a business card or something…” Sami was looking at him with a weird expression on his face, one that Dean couldn't quite place.

“Nah,” Dean shook his head “This way I know I won't lose it.”

Daniel got there about five minutes after Sami had driven off, right on time to pick Dean up. Dean didn't miss the way that Daniel's lips thinned when he saw Dean smoking right by the gas pumps. Dean just grinned as he dropped the cigarette butt and ground it out under his heel, but there was an edge to it.

Usually it wasn't a problem for him to happily ignore Daniel's palpable judgement, but seeing Sami had thrown him off and Dean felt his nerves grating right away. Back in the day, Daniel Bryan used to throw down just as hard as the rest of them. Dean could very clearly remember when they had almost gotten arrested for stealing a stop sign while they were hammered, not to mention the couple of years that Daniel had worn nothing but ICP t-shirts.

Daniel was a good dude. He really was. He always tried to make sure Dean got hired on when he was running a job with the construction company - shoveling hot tar on the highway or hanging drywall or ripping out waterlogged carpets after pipes had burst. But Daniel could be a little sanctimonious at times.

With a wife and a house, eating nothing but a bunch of fancy ass vegetables, and yeah maybe Dean hated him a little bit for it. Sure Daniel had his shit together now, but all of a sudden Dean was having a real hard time being judged by the guy when Dean could so clearly remember Daniel's extended Juggalo phase.


	2. Never Quite Free

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (Braun Strowman, Wyatt Family - faith healing)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Never did I think that I would be working out my personal issues on Braun Strowman of all people. And yet here I am.

Erick had told Braun on the phone the week before that the chokecherries were ripe. Braun was welcome to come and pick as many as he wanted, Erick had said. It was an odd offer given that Braun had left the family and had spoken to them no more than a handful of times within in the past two years. He'd seen them in passing in the town, sure, but Braun wasn't even sure how Erick had got his new phone number.

Braun knew from experience that harvesting the chokecherries by himself was going to be an all day job if Braun wanted to get it done in one go. Which he did. Braun needed the money that he would make from the chokecherries. Selling the jelly and the syrup at the farmers market up in the city was a great source of extra cash, but that didn't mean he was looking forward to having to see everyone again.

So Braun got an early start, loading up the back of his truck and heading out to the Compound as the sun rose in his rear view mirror. It was the first weekend in August, already hot and only going to get hotter, so he kept the windows rolled down as he cruised out into the country. Soon he left the tar road behind for gravel, high grass in the road ditches that would be cut and baled for hay in the next month.

Braun still remembered how to get to the Compound. He would likely never forget, what with the map being in his heart the way that it was. The first real sign of it was when Braun drove by the ancient ‘36 Hudson that had belonged to Bray’s great grandfather. It was more rust than metal, flaking away in the grove of trees where it had been parked for decades on the side of the road.

The vehicle was covered in white crosses, paint fresh because they made sure to touch it up every year. Braun had done it himself, once or twice. Then about a half mile out from the Compound itself, Braun started to see the signs. Whitewashed boards with stark red or black letters that said things like

SINNERS BURN

YOU WILL DIE

REVELATION 21:8

The signs were nailed to trees and posts, the older ones half-obscured by vines and faded by the elements. Bray and Luke had painted most of them, and as far as Braun knew they were still adding to the collection whenever they came across a free sheet of plywood. It got worse and worse the closer he got to the Compound, where the county sheriffs wouldn't bother to give them hell about having a bunch of old stoves and doors and washing machines that were lined up along the dirt road, covered in scripture.

The sky was bleeding pale pink with dawn by the time Braun pulled up and parked his truck way at the edge of the gravel drive, closer to the woodshed than to any of the inhabited buildings. Luke and Erick and a few of their kids were standing out on the porch of the main house, staring at him. Bray was nowhere to be seen, but Braun didn't doubt for a second that he was somewhere nearby. Watching.

Braun tipped his head in their direction when he got out of the pickup but he didn't call out in greeting. Didn't go over to talk. Braun didn't want to go back in Bray’s house, didn't want to get any closer to it than he absolutely had to. The last time that Braun had been in that house he had been dying. But Braun didn't want to think about that too hard. So he just nodded at his old friends and he gathered up his buckets and his lunch bag and made his way down the well worn dirt path that led to the grove.

There was the winding streambed that cut across the back of the property, and along either side of it the banks were thick with scraggly wild chokecherry trees. Picking the chokecherries had been Braun’s favorite job on the Compound for years. It was like slipping back in time as he found himself alone with nothing but the bugs and the birds for company, reaching up to run his hands along the small serrations on the edges of the leaves.

The stream itself was never more than a trickle unless there had been recent rains, but even at its wildest Braun could easily step across the running water. Kids always had to hop to cross it, and Braun remembered how, after one heavy storm, the banks had been cut back enough that he had stood with one foot on either bank and swung the little ones back and forth across the water, laughing.

Braun was tall enough that he didn't need a ladder, just pulled the highest branches down and held them in his left hand while his right stripped away the ripe fruit. Heavy and round, so dark purple that they were edging towards black, the chokecherries came away from their bunches on the branches at only the slightest pressure. It was delicate work, but Braun’s huge hands were deceptively gentle.

Bray and Luke had always been terrible at picking, ended up dyed purple by noon with the sticky, astringent juice smeared all over their fingers and faces.

Braun worked down one side of the stream then back up the other, leaving the trees stripped bare behind him. Tradition had it that you were supposed to leave half of the fruit for the animals, but there were enough berry bushes on other parts of the property that Braun didn't think the birds would be too upset by his greed. He filled the plastic five gallon buckets one after the other as the sun crept up across the sky.

Braun picked and picked and picked, falling into the automatic rhythm of it. His hair had grown back curlier than it’d been before he lost it, but it was long enough again that the sweaty strands of it hung down into his eyes. Braun had to tie a bandanna around his head to hold it back when he stopped to snack, eating one of the peanut butter sandwiches that he had brought with him in two bites as he watched the muddy water trickle past.

No one bothered Braun at all until the end of the day, when he was in the process of loading up all the full buckets into the back of his truck. He had heard the screen door hinges squeaking, and Braun watched in his peripheral vision as Luke crossed the porch, came down the steps and across the yard as silent as a cat. Braun had known his whole life that those porch boards creaked like crazy no matter how he walked on them. But then again, Luke had always been quiet.

Braun didn't greet him, didn't say anything, just kept lifting buckets and waiting until Luke had finally settled, crossed his arms over his chest a few paces away from Braun and said

“Bray says you're lookin’ a lot better.”

Braun grunted as he hefted the last two buckets of chokecherries up into the bed of the truck, set them down with a heavy thud.

“And he can't tell me that himself?”

Luke didn't say anything else, just regarded Braun with a cold stare as he slammed the tailgate shut. The truck had once been covered in crosses and bible verses, just like all the other vehicles that the family owned, but Braun had rattle-canned navy blue over all of Luke's careful lettering.

Braun paused to wipe the sweat off his face, and as his hand passed down over his eyes Luke said

“We prayed for you even after you left, you know. And you _were_ healed.”

(They had laid their hands on Braun’s broad back, on his stomach, and they had asked the Lord to heal him.

They had spoken in tongues and fallen out in the spirit for days. Faith was supposed to heal all ailments, but Braun had kept passing black tar no matter what the angels said to Bray. Braun had been so nauseous from digesting his own blood that he was unable to eat, drinking only water and broth and watching as the sky outside the window got dark then light then dark again. It had kept on like that until he was so weak that he had almost been unable to fight when Bray had tried to stop him from going back to the hospital.

Almost.

Braun had decided that he didn't want to die, and everyone knew that once Braun made his mind up on something even God couldn't help whatever got in his way. So he had shoved Luke out of the way and punched Bray right in the face and he hadn’t looked back.

Blood had flowed from Bray’s nose in a quick river. Braun had cleaned his hands, of course he had, but Braun had still felt like the blood was still stuck under his fingernails a week later. When he had already been in the hospital for a couple of days and they sent the special doctor to see him. Braun could very clearly remember that he had been breathing deep and looking down at his own rough hands when they talked about his biopsy results. When Braun had said that he wanted to hear about treatment options other than the healing Word of God.)

If Braun kept his eyes shut for a few seconds longer than was strictly necessary after Luke said what he did about it being prayer that saved Braun’s life, then, well. A man did what he had to do to keep from acting in anger, and Luke didn't say anything about it besides.

“I left a couple of buckets behind the woodshed for Erick to make wine with.” And then, before he let his own better sense talk him out of it, Braun added “I think you should make Bray talk to someone.”

“To who?” Luke's lip curled up in disgust, but his eyes were like dark, empty pits in his head. “Beauregard?”

“What? Why would…” Braun shook his head. “No, not Bo. I mean like a doctor. You gotta know it ain't normal that Bray talks to angels like he does.”

Braun should have been expecting it, really, the way that Luke threw back his head and laughed. There was nothing happy or amused about it. Instead, Luke just sounded mean. Meaner still when he stopped laughing and looked Braun right in the eyes and said, without a trace of doubt in his voice

“Of course it ain't normal. Bray’s a prophet. The last of our times.”

  
“Yeah.” Braun said, turned his back on Luke as Braun wedged himself back into the cab of his truck. “Sure he is."


	3. Good Hearted

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (Rhyno & Heath Slater - babysitting)

Heath had been scheduled to open with Alexa and Mojo, but when Rhyno showed up an hour after the Arby's opened to work on payroll for the month Heath was nowhere to be seen. 

“Did you try calling him?” Rhyno asked, after Alexa’s heated explanation 

“Oh geez, what a great idea!” Alexa had been an assistant manager for a couple of months now despite her frankly terrible people skills. She showed up on time and she got stuff done, which balanced out the fact that she was very mean to Rhyno despite the fact that he was her boss. “Next time I see him I'll give him a tin can on a string so we can keep in touch!”

It wasn't that busy yet, but Alexa was already scowling. Rhyno figured she was about two minutes away from screaming at the next person who asked for extra sauce, so he grabbed a spare apron and took over the fryers to give her a break until he could think of who to call in. Soon there was a lull, no one in the restaurant and only a couple of cars in the drive-through that Mojo’s could handle. 

(Rhyno tended to get headaches if he spent too long around Mojo, but the benefit of Mojo’s complete lack of inside voice was that the drive-through customers have no problem hearing him through the speaker. Hell, they'd probably be able to hear him just fine even if there was no speaker at all.)

Rhyno finally got back to his tiny office to call Zack and see if he could come in, even though Rhyno  _ hated  _ scheduling Zack and Mojo together. Maybe he could even get a start on the payroll. But as the door was swinging shut behind him he heard Alexa, loud and brassed off, all but shouting from up front

“Jesus Christ. What's your fu-. Freaking excuse, huh?”

Rhyno closes his eyes. Took a deep breath before he turned around and headed back out past the grills to see that Heath had finally shown up. Heath had a wide eyed baby on one hip, and he was holding up his free hand palm out in a useless attempt to placate Alexa, who was audibly grinding her teeth while she glared at him. When he saw Rhyno coming up to the front Heath’s panicked face fell even further.

“I'm sorry, okay? He puked as I was droppin’ him off at daycare.”

Rhyno and Alexa just looked at Heath blankly until he got the hint and explained.

“Bo says they can't stay at daycare if they puke. That's the rules. Even though Waylon just ate too many pieces of banana and ain't actually sick.” Heath bounced the baby a little bit, and Waylon, suddenly shy, hid his face against his dad's shoulder. “I swear I woulda called, but my phone’s shut off. Please don't get mad? I need to work but I just don't have anyone else to watch him.”

It wasn't like Rhyno was completely ignorant about Heath's particular situation. When Rhyno had interviewed him and asked why Heath wanted to work at Arby's, Heath hadn’t trotted out the same bullshit answer that most applicants did. He was just honest and said that he just really needed a job to take care of his kids. It was admirable, in Rhyno’s opinion. But aside from that and some of Alexa’s ruder comments about people in the trailer park not knowing what condoms were, Rhyno hadn’t really thought about it. 

As a rule, he didn't get involved in the personal lives of his employees. 

Now he was standing there listening as Alexa took advantage of the empty restaurant to start just ripping into Heath, and Heath was staring past her at Rhyno with a look of resignation on his face. Like Heath was sure that Rhyno was going to fire him for showing up late with his kid. Like Rhyno’s other most dependable employees weren't Alexa (who was a customer service nightmare) and Mojo (who was chronically late and spilled Monster energy drinks all over the grill at least twice a week).

Heath picked up every free shift that he could, even though Rhyno was fairly sure he had at least one other job. Heath never complained and he was mostly on time. Rhyno got the impression that Heath really was trying his best, and besides. It would save him from having to call in Ryder.

“Alexa. Enough.” Rhyno he refused to add to her ire. Instead he turned his attention to Heath, who was still looking like Rhyno was going to escort him personally to the gallows. “If you're okay with it I could watch him for you? While you work. I'm just doing paperwork in the back.”

The relief on Heath's face was immediate. It made Rhyno’s chest hurt a little bit.

“Really Mr. Rhyno? Geez that would be great! Thank you so much, I promise he's a real easy baby.”

Heath wasn't wrong. Waylon was easy and sweet and perfect. But it still turned into what was quite possibly the least productive day of Rhyno’s entire life. 

It hadn't occurred to him until it was too late that he knew nothing about children, much less babies. Rhyno didn't have a lot of family - no siblings or younger cousins that he had grown up with. Heath ducked back when he could to check on them, to feed Waylon or change his diaper and tell Rhyno how grateful he was, again and again. But mostly Rhyno and Waylon were on their own. What the hell had he been thinking? 

The two of just sat there for a while, Waylon perched on Rhyno’s knee while he tried to get his work done. ‘Tried’ being the operative word. The baby watched him with wide, serious eyes and after a while Rhyno gave up on paperwork and just stared back at him. Rhyno figured out that if he bounced his knee the baby would giggle and clap his hands together, which was equally entertaining for the both of them, but then Waylon started to yawn. Rhyno didn't want to lay him out on the desk or the floor so he ended up just holding the kid while he dozed and drooled against Rhyno’s chest. But then Waylon woke up and started to squirm again the race was on.

According to Heath, Waylon was a little over one year old. Which was apparently the age where kids started trying to climb and explore everything. 

Rhyno walked along behind him, hovering nervously over the tiny human and offering a hand for the baby to grab when he started to teeter back and forth. Soft, pudgy little hands that were dwarfed in Rhyno’s. Ten perfect, tiny fingers that grabbed out at anything they came close to. Waylon was fearless of Rhyno and everything in the office, and when Rhyno turned his back for one second to try and approve a form Waylon had an old name tag stuck in his mouth and was chewing it valiantly.

Rhyno scooped him up and snatched the name tag away, terrified that the kid would swallow it or stab himself and then Heath would kill Rhyno for being a negligent babysitter. Waylon started to squawk at that, grabbing at Rhyno’s ear and his hair and trying to climb on his face while Rhyno looked down at the tag.

It was one of his own, one of the old ones that said ‘Terry’ instead of ‘Rhyno’. Where had that even been? Probably swept into a corner or under something on the floor. Rhyno grimaced and chucked it in the garbage can.

He'd gone by his real name when he had gone away to college and got his business degree. But then, when he came back to town, people only ever called him by his old football nickname.

“Damn, I didn't know Rhyno had a brother! Tell him I said ‘hi’, alright Terry?” Steve Austin had been on the same team as Rhyno for all four years of high school. Rhyno still couldn't tell if Steve was seriously confused or just busting his balls.

Rhyno had given up on his government name not long after that. People in this town only knew him the one way - it was useless to swim against the current. Besides, it was his Arby's so he could get away with putting a nickname on his tag. Especially given that everyone seemed to think that ‘Rhyno’ was actually his legal name. Unfortunately it also meant that his employees, who were all too young to have gone to school with him, called him ‘Mr. Rhyno’. It was weird enough when he wasn't also babysitting their children.

“Mr. Rhyno, you've got no idea how much I appreciate this.” Heath said, after he had clocked out and come to retrieve his kid. Despite Rhyno’s stomach clenching worry that he would find something wrong with him, Heath had just smooched Waylon on the forehead before settling the giggling baby back on his hip.

“It's fine, really.” 

“I promise it won't happen again. Or.” Heath stopped to think for a second. “Or at least I'm gonna get my phone turned back on so I can call in if it does.”

“That would be good.” Rhyno said, as he settled back behind his desk “You're an excellent employee, Heath. I appreciate all of your hard work.”

They had taught him that in management training - it was important to give employees positive feedback. Make sure they feel appreciated and you have a better chance of retaining good workers. But Rhyno wasn't easy going with people, awkward and strange by nature. And from the look Heath was giving him, Rhyno knew that that he must have just done something weird. 

“Aren't you gonna go home too?” Heath finally asked, after Rhyno had logged on to the computer.

“What? Oh. No. I didn't get much work done today, so-”

“Aw, man, I'm so sorry. It's cause you were watchin’ him for me ain't it? I'm sorry to put you out like that.”

“It's not a problem. Waylon and me got along just fine, didn't we?”

The baby said nothing, of course. But Heath looked back and forth between his kid  and Rhyno with the purest expression of pride and joy on his face that Rhyno had ever seen.


	4. Broom People

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (Xavier Woods, Big E, Kofi Kingston - hoarder house)

By the time Xavier pulled up at the house Kofi and Big E were already standing on the porch with their hands in their pockets, hats pulled down over their ears even though it wasn’t really that cold. It had snowed a little bit the night before, and thin coat of white powder that was just deep enough to show the tire tracks and footprints.

Big E’s great uncle had died at the beginning of autumn, but it wasn’t until that winter that they finally got around to dealing with the old man’s house. The fall season was just too busy - E had said that his family had to finish bringing the cows in before he could get around to dealing with his uncle's place. 

It was a gabled two story farmhouse, at least a hundred years old and just down the road from E’s family’s ranch. Xavier had driven past it plenty of times before, but hadn't ever paid it that much attention. The blue paint was old and peeling, and when Xavier joined his friends by the door he realized he couldn’t see in the windows at all. When E had asked them for their help dealing with the house, Xavier and Kofi had agreed without hesitation. That’s what friends were for, right?

Xavier would have showed up to help regardless, but he was starting to think he hadn’t taken some of E’s warnings seriously enough.

“We can keep whatever we want, and if there’s any money to be made by scrapping the metal we can split it.” E said, passing out a pair of work gloves to each of them. “My parents rented the dumpster for the junk that won’t burn, but we can bonfire the rest.”

Xavier followed the tilt of E’s head to the huge, dark green dumpster that had been left beside of the house. E must have already thrown the top flaps open, the dark interior gaping open and empty up at the slate grey sky. It wasn’t empty for long.

“So was your great uncle, always, like…” Kofi trailed off. 

The water was turned off in the house, but E had brought a bag full of Gatorades that they all gulped down greedily. They were taking a break in the small open space they had managed to clear in the kitchen, coats long since laid aside as they worked up a sweat moving out the piles and piles of junk

“Long as I knew him.” Big E shrugged. “My dad said he didn’t start with the hoarding real bad until after he got back from the Army, but that was before I was born.”

They ended up tying scraps of fabric over their noses and mouths when they got to the floor of that first room. The thick dust and petrified mouse turds they uncovered made it difficult to breathe - psychologically difficult, at least, if not physically. It occurred to Xavier only belatedly how thankful he was that Big E’s great uncle hadn’t kept pets. At least they didn’t have to worry about finding any of those buried under stacks of garbage.

Only a couple of hours in and Xavier figured that they had removed an entire Home Depot’s worth of nails and bolts in rusted coffee cans, enough lamps to furnish an entire hotel, and enough stacks of dry rotted newspaper that the eventual bonfire would be visible from space. They hadn’t even made it to the staircase yet, much less the second floor. E had warned them that it would take them a couple of days, maybe a week, to get through everything but he had to duck out and call his dad to say that it was going to take way more than one giant dumpster to deal with all the stuff they were moving.

According to E there was a small garage that his great uncle had lived in after he had packed the house too full to navigate. There was also supposedly a slightly newer pole barn that housed every rusted out old tractor and vehicle that anyone in E’s family had ever owned. They'd make a good amount of money at the scrap yard when they finally got around to hauling that stuff out of there.

In the house it was mostly just trash, but there was some interesting stuff hidden away in there too that the three of them would stumble across as they worked throughout the day. 

A small mountain of MRE’s was uncovered under a pile of scratchy blankets. When Xavier suggested trying to eat one, Kofi appeared from seemingly out of nowhere and slapped Xavier up the back of his head. Literally. 

“You're worse than my kid.” Kofi griped, snatching one of the packages away from Xavier “Can't believe I have to tell you not to eat the nasty old food.”

Then there was the plastic tote filled with old home movies, the type that had been developed onto rolls of film that would have to be fed through a projector. If they could ever find an antique projector that would run it, that was. Most of the photo albums they found were in rough enough condition that they couldn’t be saved, but E packed the few decent ones in the trunk of his car with the home movies in case his mom or grandma might want them.

Later, when they shifted a ripped queen size mattress and box spring that had been leaned up against the wall, it revealed a display of long iron rods with curling letters on the end. When Kofi and Xavier got back from chucking the box spring in the dumpster E was still staring at them, looking closely at the symbols on the end of each one.

Xavier and Kofi had picked up enough knowledge over the years that they weren't completely clueless when E explained that the rods were actually branding irons. From the looks of it, his great uncle had once collected the old brands from all the ranches in the county before they had gone under and left E’s family as one of the last handful of operations in the area. 

“You’ve got to keep your brand registered with the state or else you lose it.” Big E was well practiced in explaining ranch stuff to his friends, which was good since Xavier had grown up more interested in computers than the outdoors and Kofi’s family had moved to from a big city only five or six years ago when they had all been freshmen in high school. “See this one? The rocking H with the two rails? The Harts haven’t run cows around here for over a decade.”

Mostly though, Big E’s great uncle’s house was filled with a bunch of sad junk. 

Xavier had gotten tired of looking at the headlines from every newspaper from the past fifty years long before they even pushed into the first bedroom, which was literally packed to the ceiling with boxes and stacks of chewed up paper. Every dish and tool that E’s uncle had ever owned had been stored away in rattling boxes. Broken and useless, but apparently still too precious to be discarded. 


	5. Nightcall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (Sami Zayn - night driving)  
> blood
> 
> If you are maybe concerned about those tags, please see the end notes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Updating two times today because I am going to be busy af tomorrow!

Forecasters had been talking about the storm cell on the radio for a couple of days. There were still yellow leaves on all the trees, but the storm was predicted to smack into them and drop a couple inches of snow overnight.

“It's probably that climate change bullshit, I don’t fuckin’ know.” Dean shrugged “Good enough excuse for a party though. Power outages always get people horny.”

Sami had politely declined the invitation. He had been working ten hour days and he was supposed to be off for the next three and. Honestly, Sami was just looking forward to curling up with some hot chocolate and a good book and seeing if maybe Finn could Skype with him for a while if the power didn't go out.

But when Sami got a call from his boss saying that he needed Sami to come in and help troubleshoot a processing error, well. Sami hadn’t thought twice. He had just grabbed his jacket and hopped in the car, forgotten all about the incoming storm until he was clocking out with nine more hours of overtime under his belt. Then he had looked out the window just in time to see that the snow was starting to come down in the dark parking lot.

Oops.

The drive back to his apartment was nerve-wracking. Sami had gone all a good six years without having to drive, walking or riding his bike or maybe taking the bus if the weather got bad enough. He wasn't used to driving in winter storms anymore (if he ever had been in the first place) and it was the middle of the night. Sami was already feeling tired and frayed around the edges so the trip was doing bad things to his anxiety. At least the wind wasn't too bad - Sami could see where he was going. Mostly.

Sami drove slow and careful as the road took a gentle curve that turned it almost a complete ninety degrees. If Sami could just stop thinking about hitting a patch of ice (and spinning out and dying in a rollover) then it was almost kind of peaceful. It was. It was okay. Maybe he could stand to go a little faster, especially since going too slow could also be dangerous if a vehicle came up real fast behind him and -

In his bright headlights the world looked stark and monochrome. Black and white and grey. He hadn’t taken his eyes off the road for one second but, as Sami came around the last corner of the curve, he still didn't see the  _ red _ all over the left lane until he was almost on top of it.

Sami was startled enough that he forgot until a split second after the fact that slamming on his brakes in the middle of a snowstorm wasn't the best idea. But his tires caught traction right away, and the car stopped in the middle of the road without slipping or sliding at all. Sami inched his car over to the side of the edge of the lane, put it in park and flipped on the hazards. Then he opened his door and stepped out into the world that was cold and quiet. He could hear the squeaking of his windshield wipers, but there wasn't any screaming, which.

Sami didn't know whether that made him feel better or worse.

Right away Sami saw the motorcycle that had been laid over, the back wheel of it sticking out across the white line that marked the far edge of the left lane. Sami couldn’t see the entire bike since most of it was obscured in the darkness on the side of the road that his headlights didn't illuminate, but the parts that Sami could make out looked bent and twisted. Sami didn't know what could have caused the accident - aside from the ruined motorcycle and his own car the road was devoid of traffic.

Beyond the motorcycle, the left lane of the road was streaked with blood in a wide swath. Like something had been dragged. The pool was thickest and deepest close to the motorcycle, thinning out further away from the scene. The red sheen of it stood out bright and incongruous in Sami’s headlights. Quickly falling snowflakes gathered on the red puddles, clumping together into a white crust for a second before the fresh, steaming heat of the blood melted them away. 

There was no way that the motorcycle had been driving itself, but Sami couldn't see a body. But he had never seen so much blood before and there was a lot yet that he couldn’t see, a vast swath of darkness beyond the area that where his headlights illuminated.

Sami was breathing heavy, his heart pounding in his chest as he tried not to panic. The snowflakes were catching in his eyelashes, melting against his face as he blinked and tried to think through what he should do.

When he'd gotten the job at the chemical plant, Sami had been required to refresh his training for first aid and CPR and materials safety. Sami had paid very close attention and taken the training seriously even when half of the other new hires had seemed to be dozing through it all. But if there was ever an accident at work and Sami couldn't help because he had been too busy messing around during training... he never would have been able to forgive himself. 

Sami had felt confident that he at least knew the basics when he had passed the written test with flying colors. It was a completely different feeling to be standing on the shoulder of the road in the middle of the night, looking at the asphalt that was so wet and so red and Sami didn't think that knowing how to apply pressure to a cut or keep a person's a neck stabilized was going to cut it.

Forgetting about the first aid kit in his trunk, Sami grabbed his phone off of the passenger seat and flipped on the flashlight app as he jogged over to the motorcycle. His hands were shaking so bad that he almost dropped the phone, actually fumbled it for a second before he tightened his grip and tried to prepare himself for the worst before he pointed the light down into the road ditch.

Sami had been so certain that he was about to see a dead body that for a second he actually did. Then reality caught up with his overactive imagination, and Sami saw the carcass for what it really was. A deer. A big one, sure, but it was a lot better to see a dead deer than a human corpse. 

He trudged past the motorcycle, careful as he left the hard surface of the road for the softer shoulder, skirting around the blood trail. Sami didn't really want to look at the carnage - the deer’s belly had torn open and spilled the long rope intestines out into the fresh snow, fixed and vacant eyes bulged and stared out at nothing, the tongue that lolled out from between the flat teeth - so he pointed the flashlight on his phone out across the fieldoor instead.

Sami knew what he was looking for. Even if he didn’t want to think about it too hard, he knew what he was probably going to find. So his heart kicked in his chest when the light scanned over a discarded helmet and then a trail of stuttered footprints, heading out into the field. Away from the road and into the dark night.

The light from his phone was only so powerful. Sami had to follow the footprints for little bit, shining the light ahead of himself, before he found anything. The falling snow made the world quiet, dampened whatever quiet night sounds there may have normally been. Sami couldn’t hear anything other than his own rough breaths and, then, the startled little noise that he made when he finally saw the motorcycle rider ahead of him.

It was a man, standing up, and Sami’s heart unclenched. He had his back to Sami and his head sort of tilted back like he was looking up at the empty sky. As Sami got closer he saw that the guy was huge - at least a head taller than Sami himself - and the motorcycle leathers he was wearing were wet with what could have been either snow or blood, pretty well destroyed since they were road rashed all over from where the guy must have rolled.

“Hey! Hey, are you okay?” Sami yelled out, too loud, his voice ringing across the field.

The big biker turned around slowly, like he wasn't quite sure what he was doing. Most of his long, scraggly hair was hanging in his face, but Sami saw the way that he blinked very slowly as he swayed back and forth a little bit.

“Huh?”

“You were in an accident. I'm gonna call for the ambulance, okay?” Sami took a hesitant step forward, reached out to put his hand on the biker’s elbow. The man just kept looking at Sami, unperturbed. “We have to walk back that way.”

The guy seemed to be in a daze, and Sami didn't know what he was supposed to do for a head injury when the person was mostly functioning but he figured he just had to make sure the guy stayed safe until the paramedics showed up. The cold was starting to settle in now that the rush of pure adrenaline had faded, and Sami blew the hand that wasn’t steering the guy along, rubbed his fingers against his beard.

“Are you from around here? What’s your name?” Sami said, coaxing, pulling at his arm a little bit and trying to get the guy to walk with him.

“Baron.”

“Okay, Barry. Let's just-”

Sami broke off when Barry jerked away abruptly. When Sami turned around to see what was wrong - he was terrified that maybe the guy had collapsed or something - he noticed right away that he was being glared at.

“Not Barry. _Baron_.”

“Okay, sorry.” Sami tried not to cringe.

That had to be a good sign, right? Baron had enough processing power to know that he definitely did not want to be called by Sami’s presumptuous nickname. “We're going to walk that way, okay? You see the headlights?”

Baron nodded, only staggering a little as he started to walk back towards the road. Sami put a hand back on his elbow, as if he would have been able to do much good if Baron had started to fall over, but it was as much to reassure himself as anything else.

Sami took a deep breath, and then he dialed 911.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: animal death/minor gore, aftermath of a motorcycle accident not involving main character, no traumatic injuries


	6. Welcome Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (Dean Ambrose, Heath's Kids - oil change)

Any burrito was a breakfast burrito if you ate it early enough in the day. That's what Dean's mama had always said. And, well, fuck. The clock on the microwave said was almost noon already, but since Dean had just woken up he was still counting it as breakfast.

Dean was eating his third microwave burrito of the morning and standing at his counter wearing a pair of swim trunks and his steel-toe boots. Not because he was planning to go swimming or to go to work - it was Saturday, fuck that - but because they had been the closest pieces of clothing at hand when he had woken up. People always seemed surprised that Dean hated walking around his place bare ass naked. Fuck that. He wasn't some type of animal.

So Dean was surprised by the knock on the door, but at least he had some clothes on and no reasons to be worried. He'd already paid his rent and lot fees for the month and if it was one of his neighbors telling him to mow his jungle of a lawn then Dean would tell them right where they could stick it.

Dean opened the door with the burrito still in one hand, squinting his eyes against the midday glare. For a second Dean didn’t see anyone and he thought someone had ding-dong-ditched him old school style. Then he looked down and saw Boomer and his little twin sisters standing on his front step.

“What's up munchkins?”

“Dad wants to know if you can come fix our van.”

“Fix the van?” Dean rubbed at his eyes. It was way too bright outside. “What broke on it this time?”

“Dad said fix the oil.” Boomer scrunched his eyebrows together, looking serious.

Dean, who was well aware of how little Heath knew about vehicles, wouldn't have been surprised if he had actually said those exact words. “You mean do an oil change?”

“Yeah! Fix the oil!” Jayla, the twin with the bangs, chimed in.

“Sure, sure, yeah.” Dean yawned into the remains of the burrito. “Just lemme finish this up first okay? I'll be right over.”

It turned out that Boomer and his sisters had hauled the oil and the filter and the drip pan down to Dean’s trailer for some reason, so he had to take it all back with him after he had finished his food and put a shirt on. Heath only lived two blocks down but the summer sun was hot and miserable and Dean was already sweating by the time he turned the corner.

Dean really, really hated summer. Not that he wouldn’t complain about any type of weather given the chance, but that was just a principal thing.

Winter was always a cold pain in the ass, sure, but at least Dean could put on extra layers if he needed to warm up. The only way to get cool in summer was to take all his clothes off and he couldn’t exactly do that in public now could he? He knew that summer sucked for Heath too, but that was mostly because Heath had to find someone to watch _all_ of his kids since the older ones were out of school.

At least the van was shady underneath, and it sat up high enough that Dean could shimmy under it without having to put it up on ramps or anything. Dean had learned how to do all this basic shit back in a high school tech class, and in no time at all he was back out in the sun with Heath's kids standing around in a little huddle and watching him intently. He leaned back against the bumper and picked little shards of gravel out of the skin of his shoulders, waiting for the oil to drain.

“Gunner and Ricky are in timeout ‘cause they wouldn't share their crayons.” Boomer informed Dean first thing. Kid was only eight, but he took his position as oldest sibling very seriously.

Dean was unsurprised by this news - Heath's younger set of twins were almost three, not an age where kids were known for being on their best behavior. “That sounds like them.”

“Why’re you so dirty?” Cheyenne, Heath's second kid, scrunched her little face up as she stared at him

“Cause the oil is dirty and I got it on my hands.”

“You should take a bath!”

“That’s what they tell me.” Dean grinned

“What’s that?” Jolene, the other twin girl, pointed in Dean's general direction.

“What? The oil filter?”

“Naw, in your fingers.” Jayla clarified on behalf of her sister. Jolene nodded in agreement.

“It's, uh. It's a piece of gravel. Like a little tiny rock.”

“I saw a really big rock!”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah! It was as big as the whole van!”

“No it wasn't.” Cheyenne shook her head, solemn and serious, but Jayla only stuck her tongue out at her older sister.

“Hey,” Boomer cut in “be nice!”

“Don’t gotta!”

“Do so!”

It all devolved from there, until Dean had one kid riding him piggyback and another one picked up under each arm as he hauled them into the trailer for Heath to settle the argument.

It wasn't really that strange for people to have a couple of kids by the time that they were in their early twenties. But seven kids by the age of twenty-four, and all with the same woman, well... There were two sets of twins in there, but Heath was still an outlier for sure. Dean considered himself to be on the other end of that spectrum, since the fact that he had managed to make it to the twenty-five without knocking anyone up probably qualified as some sort of minor miracle. 

Heath was also amazingly not bitter about the fact that his old lady had walked out a month after giving birth to the last one, leaving him behind with just a goodbye note and the entire pack of kids.

“She just said that she couldn' take it anymore.” Heath had shrugged when Dean had asked him about it once, opened the jar of applesauce without missing a beat. “It ain't her fault. Last I heard, she's runnin a ferris wheel over in Minnesota now.”

But Dean knew that, despite Heath’s lack of complaints, life had gotten a lot tougher for for him ever since his wife took off. Even with food stamps and two jobs, Heath still had seven goddamn kids - it was tough to make ends meet. Tougher still since Heath had to drive shitty old van to fit everyone in the family, and had absolutely zero understanding of mechanics.

About five or six months ago Heath had been freaking out about the van acting funny and not having the money to take it to a mechanic. Dean had walked to O’Reilly’s and back and then he had replaced the fuel filter on the beast in about ten minutes flat. Heath had given Dean a full pan of tuna casserole in thanks and Dean had got to teach Heath's kids about different types of wrenches and he had been doing oil changes on the van ever since.

Dean was no master of engines, but unlike Heath he at least knew enough to keep them running. It was the least that Dean could do to help out.


	7. Get It

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (Neville & Dolph Ziggler, Dean Ambrose - first 'date')  
> reckless driving, public intoxication

Neville volunteered at the library twice a week, and when it was time to walk home the guy with the car would stop and talk to him for while.Dolph talked about himself a lot, but he was nice enough and Neville never got a creepy vibe from him.

It had happened regularly enough that it had gotten to be a part of his schedule. So when Dolph offered to drive him over to the Arby's to show Neville something cool Neville figured that it was just a bad joke and that they were going to get milkshakes or something, so he had agreed easily enough.

Neville hadn’t made a ton of friends in the past year since his parents had moved them over to the States. He had always been kind of reserved, but his lack of connections was mostly because he was funny looking and had a dumb accent. Specifically, his glasses made him look like a nerdy hobbit. Or so he had been told. Neville tried not to let it bother him. He had heard it all before, but it was still nice to have someone who wanted to hang out with him.

But as soon as Dolph had pulled into the parking lot of the fast food chain, a short blond girl with her hair pulled back in pigtails came storming out the door and marching straight towards them. Dolph slowed the car, still idling forward, but he hit the brakes as soon as the girl - who was now along side Neville’s window - slammed one of her fists down on the hood.

Dolph scowled and looked away as Neville rolled down the window, intending to figure out what the problem was. But he didn't get the chance to ask before she was shouting across him at Dolph

“I fucking told you to stop doing this shit here, didn't I? Didn't I?”

“Hey, babe...” Dolph offered, and Neville thought that if he was trying to sound cocky he wasn't doing a very good job “Why don't you just go back inside and-”

“And what?” She bit out. Neville could see that her name tag said ‘ALEXA’ and ‘ASSISTANT MANAGER’ on it, pinned to her shirt right under the embroidered Arby's logo. “And call the fucking cops? Because that's what I'm about to do.”

Well, Arby's was out of the question then. So much for getting a milkshake.

Dolph drove a little further down the road until they came to a K-Mart. It was completely abandoned - the doors were shuttered with plywood, the asphalt of the empty parking lot cracked and overgrown with weeds. Neville had no idea why they would want to go there, but he didn't ask. There was a guy in a tank top and a ratty pair of jeans standing over by one if the dented soda machines, smoking a cigarette and drinking something that was obscured by a brown paper bag.

Dolph pulled up in what had once been the fire lane, rolled down his window to shout at the guy. “What're you even doing here Dean?”

“The fuck does it look like?” The guy - Dean, apparently - lifted the paper bag as if he was going to give a toast.

“I'm about to tear this place up.” Dolph grinned at Neville when he said it, but Neville had no idea what the hell he was talking about. “Get lost, Dean.”

Dean ground the cigarette butt out under  his heel, rolling his eyes. “I was here first, dumbshit. Why don't you go back to the Arby's?”

“They told us to leave at the Arby's.” Neville volunteered, which earned him a deep belly laugh from Dean even as Dolph hunched his shoulders up around his ears.

“C’mon, dude.” Dolph sighed, as he rolled his window up and pushed some of his long hair back from his face. “Why d’you gotta do me like that?

“Like what?” Neville grinned, pleased with himself. After a second Dolph smiled back.

“I guess I did promise to show you something cool, even if you are a jerk.” Dolph said. “Just get out of the car and wait here ok? And ignore Dean. He's an asshole.”

“Wait, what?”

“Just trust me. Okay?”

Still confused, Neville climbed out of the car and watched in shock as Dolph started to  _ drive away _ , leaving him standing in front of the empty store. What the hell? Once the car had gone a little ways away, it stopped and idled for what seemed like a couple of minutes. Neville was just about to walk over to see if something was wrong when he heard the engine rev and the car started spinning in circles. 

Distracted by the white plume of exhaust and the smell of burning rubber, Neville didn't notice that Dean had walked over until he was standing right at Neville’s elbow.

Dean smelled like beer, and he had a fresh cigarette dangling out of the corner of his mouth. Neville watched as Dean tried to light it with the hand that wasn't holding the paper bag, getting frustrated by his lack of success. Dean had one eye shut as he tried to focus, but he was still swaying back and forth a little bit as he held the flickering lighter a good four inches away from the tip of the cigarette. 

“Sonuva-”

“Here, let me help.” Neville reached out and Dean dropped the lighter into his hand with a scoff. Neville didn't smoke, never had, but he figured that the process was fairly simple and Dean, well. Dean seemed to be having a real hard time with it.

“Stupid thing must be broke - oh.” Dean looked down his nose, swaying a little as Neville flicked the lighter and held the flame up and lit the cigarette in about two seconds. 

“Thanks, man.” Dean took a drag through clenched teeth, exhaled. “So how do you know Dolph?”

“Uh.” Neville hadn’t stopped to think about it before, but he suddenly felt weird about the fact that he was hanging out with Dolph when Neville barely knew him. “He always talks to me when I walk home from volunteering at the library. Today he said he had something cool to show me. I, um. I think this is it?”

“Hah. You don't like it? You don't think this is cool?”

As if on cue, Dolph did another burnout on the far side of the parking lot.

“I don't -” Neville faltered, suddenly worried that he had maybe just insulted this guy. Dean didn’t sound serious, but Neville couldn't be sure. “It's okay I guess? I'm just not really a car guy.”

“Me neither.” Dean grinned, took another drink around the cigarette in his mouth. “I just wondered if Dolph’d finally found someone that was impressed by his dumb show off bullshit.”

Dean and Neville stood there for a while, watching as Dolph spun circles across the empty parking lot. His tires left curling black streaks on the pavement, although by the look of the surface it wasn't the first time someone had used the parking lot for this purpose.

Then, apropos of nothing, Dean asked Neville “Wait, did you say that you volunteer at the library?”

“Yeah. Mostly I just get the projects set up ahead of time for the kids craft -”

“Are you on parole?” Dean cut him off “‘Cause Truth told my P.O. I couldn't do my hours there. I had to go pick up the highway instead. That's some fucking bullshit, man.”

Neville was slightly taken aback by the assumption that he was on parole. He didn't look like a criminal, did he? Dean, well. Neville hadn’t wanted to make any assumptions but he wasn't exactly surprised.

Neville was starting to get a little uncomfortable talking to this guy. He wondered if he could ask Dolph to give him a ride home, but Dolph had paused his car on the far side of the lot, the engine a low rumble.

“Uh, no. I have to get twenty volunteer hours for graduation.” Neville explained, but apparently he hadn’t done a very good job because Dean was looking at him like he had grown a second head. “For graduation.” Neville repeated, and then “From high school?”

Just then Dolph gunned it again, doing a series of burnouts that brought him right by the place that Neville and Dean were standing. It was like the world was moving in slow motion as Neville watched what happened next.

Dolph looked out his window at Neville and actually  _ winked _ , cranking the wheel so that the rear end of the car spun around. Neville saw that Dolph was looking a little wild around the eyes, grinning like crazy. As the car turned and the nose of it passed them by, Dean suddenly drew back his arm and flung the paper bag with the can inside of it. For someone who was drunk enough that he couldn’t even get a cigarette lit, Dean had impeccable aim and the bag bounced off the windshield with a hollow clank. It didn’t crack the glass like Neville had thought it might, but it did spray beer all over the front of Dolph’s car. 

Dolph slammed on the brakes, his suddenly furious face clearly visible through the smeared windshield as the car screeched to a stop. Dolph got out of the car, slammed the door behind him and stalked over with his fists clenched. 

“What the fuck, Dean? I told you to fuck off!”

  
“Sorry friendo. Just thought you'd want to know that you're new buddy here is in fucking.  _ High. School _ .” Dean slurred his words a little bit, exhaled a white cloud of smoke that Dolph flinched back to avoid. “And even he doesn't think your shit is cool.” 


	8. Dirt In The Ground

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (Brock Lesnar - hunting)
> 
> Poaching, animal death

Brock woke up while the world was still dark and he filled his thermos with coffee in his silent kitchen, the only sound the ticking of the heating element as it cooled. He got his 30-06 rifle down off of the rack and slung it across his shoulders before he trudged out to the grove of trees that curled around the back of his equipment shed. The morning was bright and cold and clear, and he could see the little white clouds that puffed out in front of his face with each breath that he took. Later, he would have to feed the hogs and change the timing belt on one of his tractors.

First, he was going to kill a deer.

Brock had never been a fan of deer stands, especially not the kind that went in trees. He was a big man and he did not like heights or being enclosed. He knew his land well enough that a stand would have just been a waste of money anyways. Brock could find a good, concealed place to sit and wait without even having to think about it. He just let his body take him through the brittle brush to the edge of his north field, settled down behind a fallen ash tree to wait.

His coach in school had said that it was like he entered stasis when he was waiting for a meet to start - while the other guys on the wrestling team might be shouting and psyching themselves up, Brock Lesnar would always just sit and stare off at the lockers on the other side of the room. When the time finally came he would go out there and wipe the floor with the competition, but until then there was nothing to do but  _ wait _ . 

Waiting had never been a problem for Brock.

The first deer to appear was an antlerless yearling. Brock watched her graze for a while as he sipped his coffee, let her disappear back into the trees. There was still a little bit of frost on the blades of yellow grass when the next deer - a stout buck - wandered into view. The rising sun bounced off the ice crystals, made them shimmer and shine when the deer nudged at them with it's snout.

Brock set down his coffee and watched through the scope of his rifle. It was at a little less than a hundred meters. Brock could see it as clear as day through the glass. He could see the texture of the soft black of the nose, the white area of fur on its belly and rump and throat. He could see the pointed hooves that picked up and set down carefully, making little noise as it picked its way across the clearing in search of food.

When Brock drew back the bolt action on the rifle to chamber a round, the loud snap of the metal echoed across the fields. The deer looked up in a heartbeat. It's eyes were wide and bulging as it glanced left and right and then straight at Brock before it looked away again. Through the scope, he could see the deer’s ears swivel as it tried to track the sound, the way that it's white tail twitched side to side for a second before the deer went back to nosing through the grass.

Brock breathed in. He breathed out. Even at a distance he could see the deer’s ribcage contracting and expanding, out of time with his own. He watched the way that the animal's muscles that twitched and shifted as it move, the way that they went rigid and still when the slug from Brock's rifle tore through the deer's neck, killing it instantly. Brock breathed in. He breathed out. Everything was as it was supposed to be. 

Brock didn't like it when the way things went deviated from their regular and prescribed course. So last summer when the girl behind the counter at the sporting goods store had said

“Have a great day!” 

Brock had not liked it at all. She had been looking Brock right in the face, smiling at him. Bayley - by her name tag - had just finished loading Brock's boxes of ammo into a sturdy paper bag before she pushed them across the counter. Brock Lesnar had grunted, left the store, and he hadn't been back since. 

Brock was fairly sure that Bayley had guessed, or at least strongly suspected, that he was poaching deer. Why else would she have grinned at him like that? He wasn't sure what had given him away, but the way that she looked at Brock - happy and smiling, even though she had no reason to be -had been like an accusation. Since that day Brock had been driving all the way to the city and back on the occasions that he needed to buy something hunting related that Walmart didn't stock. 

Brock wasn't used to being accused, to the strange feeling curling in his gut that may or may not have been guilt. Brock had learned early in life that he could pretty much do whatever he wanted. It worked out, since for the most part all that he wanted was to be by himself and not have to deal with people - the people in town were more than happy to oblige. 

For his part, Brock gave them no reason to interfere with his business. He grew corn and raised hogs and he paid his damn taxes each year. 

Brock did not bait the deer, even though there was no law against feeding them. He never set traps on his land. He just resented the fact that the state Fish and Game department thought that they could tell him what he was and was not allowed to do on his own property. Brock got a  _ gratis _ deer tag each year for being a landowner, sure, but that didn’t change the fact that the law was ridiculous. 

If Brock was only going to be legally allowed to shoot a deer from dawn to dusk in a ten day time frame, well. Brock lived miles and miles from his nearest neighbor. He spent his days in perfect solitude, surrounded by fields and groves of trees that were thick with deer. There was no one to care what he did or smile at him or make him feel guilty for hunting out of season.


	9. Circle Be Unbroken

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (Big E - old home movies)
> 
> Ranching related stuff mentioned in passing, specifically branding and castration of calves.

The case that was closest to the top of the box said ‘Easter 2000, Robert's family.’

Big E had no conscious memory of it until he had wound up the first roll of 8mm film into the projector and set the wheels spinning, saw the watery silent image that was projected onto the wall of his basement. The image was flickering, but E had no problem making out the picture - himself as a child, maybe nine years old. He had been wearing a cowboy hat and a plaid shirt, holding a coiled length of ranch rope in one hand, and looking confused as he glanced back and forth.

E remembered then that he had been looking between the eye of the camera and the face of the man standing behind it. In the year 2000 digital cameras had already been a thing - too expensive for E’s family or anyone he knew to own one, but E had been around VHS video recorders before. So when his great uncle Roy had pointed the chunky black rectangle with its inscrutable lens at E, he remembered that he hadn’t been quite sure what it was.

He watched as the younger version of himself cut out and the video switched to a shot of E and his cousins hunting around in the yard for Easter eggs. There were a bunch of quick, jumping shots of E’s Grandpa Bob hiding eggs in places that E knew he would have found hilarious. One on the seat of a tractor, one in somebody's boot, another set ever so gently on top of a pile of manure. Then there was a blue egg that had been set in the crook of a tree too high for any of the kids to reach, followed by a shot of a E with his boosting his little cousin to stand up on his shoulders so that she could reach it. That part, E had a very clear memory of. 

It hadn't been normal for E’s family to film their gatherings, and at the time he had thought that Roy was just being weird. Everyone knew that great uncle Roy was kind of a strange dude so it hadn't really been that notable beyond the passing childhood curiosity. But as an adult, when E thought back to that Easter, he realized that it hadn’t been long afterwards that Grandpa Bob had told them that he was sick for the first time. 

They hadn’t expected his Grandpa Bob to live out the year, much less the eight more years that he actually got. 

E figured then that Grandpa Bob had probably told Roy before he told the rest of the family. That Roy had dug the camera out from wherever he had buried it in his house so that he could record what might have been Grandpa's last holiday with his family, the last time he would have gotten to play his signature brand of jokes on his grandchildren.

The next year, Grandpa had hidden every last one of the eggs in the henhouse. It was the last place any of them thought to look for eggs that had already been boiled and dyed. Then they’d had to gather them back from the chickens, as if once hadn’t been enough. 

There weren't any videos of that, though. The home movie from Easter 2000 was the most recent thing that E came across. Not all of the reels were labeled, and E found that movies went back for decades. Some of the film had been overexposed or destroyed, but even so E still ended up watching old home movies for a couple of hours.  

It was surreal to watch the shaky and silent clips, mostly devoid of context, and see the young and laughing faces of his family members. It wasn't like he had never seen pictures - his mom scrapbooked everything she could get her hands on - but it was another thing to watch his Grandmother swing up onto the back of a saddled horse, looking so young and happy with her hair in neat braids and a kerchief tied around her neck.

After a while E couldn't help but wonder if the camera and the movies had originally belonged to Grandpa Bob instead of Roy. Maybe Roy had  _ collected _ them after a fight somewhere along the way, but E'd never know now that they were both dead and gone. Then again, Roy’d never had a wife or kids so it maybe made sense that all his home movies were of E’s branch of the family.

Because there were his dad and his uncles, roping the spring calves and holding them down while Grandma worked the brands. E recognized the shirt that his dad was wearing in the video, with the Langston Ranch brand embroidered on the back. He recognized the corral where E himself had tackled calves and his older brother castrated them. 

In what was probably the earliest movie, one that had been buried at the bottom of the box, E watched as his Grandpa Bob rode a horse along one of the barbed wire fences that ran along the edge of the property. E knew that fence right away, the one that ran by the twisted tree that had kept growing even after being struck by lightning - he had replaced all the rusted wire along it himself the previous summer.

Big E’s strongest memories of his Grandpa Bob were from the year or so leading up to the old man's death. His Grandpa had been frail by then, down to only one foot and three rounds in with the long term effects of Agent Orange exposure. E’s older brother had graduated and joined up with the Army right away, so E ended up being the one to drive Grandpa Bob to his doctor's appointments that summer. 

E was glad that he'd got to spend that time with his Grandpa before the end, but it had still been. Hard 

In the stuttering, washed out film E’s grandfather nudged the horse with his knee as it loped past and away from the camera, mouth moving as he said something to Roy that was forever lost to time. His Grandpa had been wearing a pair of chaps and he had his cowboy hat tilted back at an angle that E recognized immediately as the same way that he wore his own.


	10. Wild Things

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (Dean Ambrose/Seth Rollins - underage drunk sledding)

They had been juniors in high school, Dean remembered. Almost thirteen months exactly before Dean would get arrested for trying to burn down the Cracker Barrel.

Dean had never spent more time at home than he absolutely had to, but junior year had been particularly bad. But it had gotten better once Seth - who was a complete dipshit at parallel parking - had finally passed his driver's test and got his full license. At the time it was the biggest freedom that either of them had ever known. That freedom for Seth to take the car that his parents had bought for him and pick Dean up and drive wherever they wanted to go, which on that night had happened to be the best sledding hill in town.

Dean had a 500ml bottle of whiskey that he had stolen and two cafeteria trays that he had also stolen and they had both been laughing as the slogged up to the top of the hill. It was nighttime and the place was abandoned except for them, talking shit and shoving each other and trading the bottle back and forth.

Seth had brought an actual sled, but Dean had made him leave it in the trunk and explained to Seth as they walked that those flexible plastic disks were bullshit. Dean didn't want any extra surface area to create excess friction and slow him down. The cafeteria trays were hard plastic and just big enough to sit on - no needless drag, perfect for maximum speed.

“Remind me again why you're not taking physics?”

Dean just shrugged.

There had been an full orange harvest moon that night, enormous as it hovered above the horizon and sort of imposing even though Dean couldn't put his finger on why it bugged him. It seemed almost surreal. Between the big moon and the lights from the town Dean was able to see everything in almost perfect detail once his eyes had adjusted. The air had been crisp and cold, burning their noses as they made it to the launching point.

Dean had elbowed Seth out if the way, shoved the whiskey bottle into his pocket, and with a wild yell had jumped ass-first onto the cafeteria tray. As soon as he touched down he was off, picking up plenty of momentum as he went shooting down the steep incline. Dean shifted his weight, aiming the sled towards where he knew there was a little rock outcrop that he could ramp off of to get some air. His tailbone was going to hurt like a sonuvabitch when he landed, but Dean knew that it would be worth it. 

Hitting the ramp was everybody's favorite way to ride the hill - the snow was packed down and slick in that direction, making an easy to follow trail. Except that Dean, who was half drunk and goofy and trying to show off, went flying off the rock at an angle. He flipped in midair, his ass came away from the cafeteria tray, and he had just enough time to think 

‘ _ Oh fuck _ .’

The next thing that Dean had known, he woke up at the bottom of the hill. He was laying flat on his back with his arms and legs spread eagled. The cold was soaking into his bones, but Dean had hardly noticed it. He was too preoccupied with looking up at the sky. 

Dean blinked once, twice, not sure if what he was seeing was real. The low clouds stretched as far as Dean could see, blocking the stars - they looked like the ripple marks that formed in the sand along the shoreline of a lake, glowing silvery and orange in the moonlight.  Then, right in the middle of Dean’s field of view, there was an enormous black triangle.

The triangle was completely featureless, blacker than black, and it seemed to absorb all of the light that came into contact with it. The bright shine of the moon and the hazy smear of the town’s streetlamps - it all seemed to get sucked into the triangle. As if it were a void, as if it were a straight-edged hole that had been cut out of the sky. Except. It was  _ there _ . It was there and it was  _ hovering _ . 

The triangle had been hovering directly above Dean, lower than the clouds, and he had thought that just maybe he could reach out and touch it. Then Dean realized for the first time since waking up that he couldn’t hear anything. Then he heard his head ringing. Then he heard Seth yelling.

“Dean! Dean! Fuck, fuck, fuck -” Seth sounded panicked and winded.

Dean sat up in the snow and his vision starred out around the edges but he could still see Seth running down the hill heading straight for him.

“Seth! Do you see it too?”

“What? Dean, what are you talking about?”

“The triangle! Look, it's -” Dean tilted his head back, pointed up at the sky, and realized that there was nothing above him except for the rippled clouds.

Seth was next to him then, kneeling down beside Dean and grabbing his head in his hands and looking very intently into Dean’s eyes. 

“You hit your head really bad. Dean! You, fucking - you landed your head rolled down the fucking hill and then you weren't moving.”

Seth was all but yelling at him and Dean's ears were still ringing again. This close, Dean could smell the whiskey on his breath and see that the corners of Seth's eyes looked a little wet. Damn Seth, always such a lightweight.

“Dude, fuck it. Don't fuckin worry about that!” Dean batted Seth's hands away from his face as he moved his head back and forth to scan the empty sky. “Did. You see. That triangle.”

“What? Triangle?” Seth snapped his fingers in front of Dean’s face, which. Rude “What the hell are you talking about Dean? Do you have a concussion?”

“How am I supposed to know if I have a fucking concussion?”

“Um.” Seth faltered “Does your head hurt?”

“Of course my fucking head hurts dude, you saw me hit it. Stop being such a worrier, Seth, I'm fine.”


	11. Control

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (Bray Wyatt, Luke Harper - religious mania)  
> mental health issues, tattooing

When they had been young, Bray had seen right away Luke had a talent for glorifying God through his sure and steady hand. Bray had led him and Luke painted countless signs to bring the holy Word to the sinners. Even after the sheriff had told Bray to keep it on his own property and stop posting the signs on every streetcorner, Bray had instructed Luke to continue in his service. The day would come when those jackals, eaters of carrion, would crawl forward with their bellies on the dirt to beg Bray for his comfort and for the loving light that came only from the knowledge of the true Word of God.

Then, Luke had spent a couple of years away in the hospitality of the state. When he had returned, washed clean again, Luke had shown Bray that he that he had been blessed again with a new skill that allowed Luke to make the Word become flesh.

Bray had known at once that God wanted him to be that flesh. The angels spoke to Bray and Bray spoke to Luke and together they fulfilled those divine commands whenever those heavenly messengers came forward to tell Bray that it was time.

The inside of the house was hazy and dim even in the middle of the day, as it was lit only by the rays of sun that came slanting in through the gauzy lace curtains. The fabric had long since been yellowed by time and it fluttered just a bit on the little breeze that came wafting through the open windows. 

It was very still outside the window, still in the way that was only known to the hottest days in the middle of summer. For a moment Bray could hear sweet birdsong, the far-away sounding hum of insects, the crunch of tiny feet on gravel as a couple of the children walked across the yard. Then Luke turned on the machine beside him and Bray couldn't hear anything at all except for the droning buzz of the motor.

Luke worked freehand as he tattooed Bray’s flank, slow and methodical and silent. Bray told Luke to let God guide his hand and Luke, ever faithful and obedient, let himself be a vessel as Bray was a vessel.

Because Bray was a divine vessel and he was filled with a light that was so strong and vibrant that, if Bray were to crack open, the blinding power of it would leave the world so perfectly cleansed that it would be nothing more than a miles wide disk of pure black glass. Sometimes the energy inside of him was so wild that Bray needed no food or rest for days. The brightness of the angels in his soul was powerful enough that he transcended the needs of mortal men and he felt as if he could perform miracles. If only he could break the shackles and slip free from whatever last chain was that tied him to the absolutes of his physical existence.

Little by little though, Bray knew that he was shaking off the bonds and leading his faithful flock to the glory of salvation. Even when the angels eventually left him, as they always did, Bray's family was there. The holy spirit touched them all in different ways and then they laid their hands on Bray and then he was made clean again. And again and again and again.

Luke paused to wipe over his work, the weak flesh that was already pink and swollen even though the work of the day had only just begun. The pain of it was minor, all told, but Bray breathed deep and let the sharp sting clarify his mind. Suffering in this life, no matter how long it lasted or how difficult it was to endure, was only temporary.

Then, when the needle reconnected with his skin, Bray felt the pain lance through him and it was as if a great calm settled over him and a dam within his head burst open. There was no one to hear him save for Luke, but the words came on regardless.

“This world is fouled by traitors and thieves.” Bray said. “Sinners who crawl and cringe in the darkness like the maggots and the snakes. But God made the snakes and the maggots and the sinners for a reason, Luke. When that final judgement comes we will drive them from their cities and we will destroy them in totality and it will be through our sacrifice of their blood that we are freed from the consequences of our own sins.”

Time always seemed to stretch when Bray let Luke put the Word into his skin. It felt as soft and sticky as saltwater taffy, and Bray felt that if he could only just reach out he could stretch it between his hands, then. Then. Then Bray would pull it apart until it was paper thin, so transparent that he could see through each and every second of the existence of creation until he could finally see the end of it all. The great roar of fire that would obliterate the world and all of the sinners would cry out and Bray and his chosen few would be elevated to their final heavenly reward.

Then, the work was done. It felt like no more than ten minutes had passed, but when Bray brought his mind around to focus on his body again he could tell that his arm was cramped from where he had been holding it above his head and the stinging sunburned feel of the fresh tattoo traced all the way down the thin skin of his ribs.

Luke wiped the ink and the blood and the weeping lymph off of his skin, and then Bray went out walking in the glory of God's creation. 

He walked when the sun was at it's zenith and nothing cast a shadow. He walked when night had fallen and the moon had hidden it's face and the world was cloaked in darkness. He walked as he felt himself be moved by the spirit, until he had opened his head and all of the angels had burrowed into the meat of his mind, so deep down that Bray thought they would never leave him again.


	12. One Piece At A Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (Heath & Rhyno, Dean, Heath's Kids - demolition derby)

Heath had made sure to smear all his kids with sunscreen before they left to go to the demolition derby. It was a battle of wills that Heath had won only through his dedication and perseverance and four packs of fruit snacks that he had been saving for a special occasion. 

If he was lucky they would get through two, maybe three hours before everyone got tired and grumpy and wanted to go home. Adding a bunch of sunburns to the equation would make everyone extra miserable, especially Heath.

At least Waylon had some shade in the stroller, but the rest of them were going to be running around all afternoon in the direct sun and Heath just  _ knew _ they were going to get all pink on the ears no matter how hard he tried to prevent it. So when they were waiting in line for snow cones not even two hours later, Heath took the opportunity to check everyone's noses and necks. 

Including Dean.

Dean was as stubborn as a mule, and he would whine even more than Gunner did if he wound up with a sunburn in the middle of the day. Heath knew he was probably being too much of a dad, but he couldn’t help himself. He ended up just smearing a gob of the sunscreen right across Dean's face while Dean was distracted - at least if it was on his skin he would have to rub a little bit of it in.

“Quit it, man.” Dean tried to jerk away, one second too late.

“Quit it Dad!” Ricky had gotten tired of standing while they waited, so he was perched on Dean’s shoulders, pulling on his hair as Dean twisted away from Heath.

“Manners, Ricky.” Heath sighed and shook his head, turned back around as they reached the front of the line. “Now, what does everyone want?”

\---

Rhyno had volunteered when the Chamber of Commerce had decided on running the snow cone stand. They would be donating the money to the book mobile, and Rhyno had said that he was happy to help. At the time, he had been thinking they might ask him to cover the cost of supplies or something. Rhyno hadn’t anticipated that he would be the one dumping bright sugar syrup over the scoops of ice, but after the initial shock wore off he didn't really mind. It was for a good cause, after all, even if he did end up working with Richard Flair.

He was lucky that they were busy enough that Ric didn't have more than a few free seconds to chat about how good business was at the town’s only ‘adult novelty store’. Ric was collecting the money at the window and Rhyno had his back turned, trying to keep up with the orders when a bunch of kids started shouting at once.

“Cherry!”

“Yeah, I want a red one!”

“We want grape!”

“Blue!”

“Ooooooh, dad, can I get blue too?”

“Shit yeah, blue sounds good!”

“Hey! How ‘bout you watch your mouth around the kids?”

Rhyno recognized that voice right away, and he was turning around and grinning like an idiot before he could stop himself.

“Hey, Heath! How's it going?”

“Mr. Rhyno!” Heath was standing there with another guy and Waylon in a stroller and a gaggle of kids that were all but climbing on one another from the excitement of promised sugar. “It's goin’ real good! Just figured we'd get some snow cones before all the cars start crashin’.”

Rhyno nodded “Think I missed part of your order though.”

The guy standing just besides Heath had a little boy on his shoulders that was trying to eat his hair, but he didn't seem to notice or care. Instead, he just stared Rhyno down as if he was trying to see into Rhyno’s soul as he rattled off 

“Three blues, two grape, two cherry. What’s Waylon want?” He sounded way more hostile than anyone should have when ordering snow cones.

“Oh, uh, me’n Waylon’ll share. You got any orange back there Mr. Rhyno?.”

“Sure do.”

He tried to manage all nine snowcones at once dropped two on the ground, had to make them again.  Heath's friend just kept staring at Rhyno like he'd done something shitty instead of trying to be friendly. 

Rhyno tried not to get embarrassed, smiled at Heath and the kids self consciously as he handed the cones over.  Rhyno had wanted to say hi to Waylon, see if maybe Waylon remembered him, but instead he just felt vaguely guilty as he waved goodbye to the group and got back to work.

\---

Dean yelped when Heath elbowed him in the ribs, nearly dropping the two snow cones he had been tasked with carrying as they walked away from the stand. 

“Dude, what the fu-dge?” Dean caught his mouth at the last second, saving himself from another jab for cursing in front of Heath's kids.

“What's with the evil eye?”

“That guy Terry's a jerk. That dude is the why I've been boycotting the Arby's for two years.”

“Wait. Who?”

“Terry. That guy you were talking to back there.” Dean rolled his eyes and let Heath take Ricky down off his shoulders and delivered the purple snowcone into grabby little hands. “Wouldn't let me order that the drive-through since I was on foot, even though the inside part closed at midnight. Which is bull.”

“Nah, that's my boss. Rhyno? You know, I told you how he watched Waylon that one time.”

“Hmm.” Dean scowled “You sure he doesn't have a brother named Terry?”

Heath just shrugged. “I dunno, man. If he does I've never met 'im.”

They were wandering up and down the bleachers, trying to find a spot that could fit all nine of them. Dean was leading Boomer along by the hand, had to stop when the kid recognized one of his friends from school and started yelling about pokemon or some shit for a couple of minutes until Dean could drag him back to Heath and resume the conversation.

“Still. Good thing I glared at him though.”

“Why? I told you he ain't Terry.”

“Cause he's your  _ boss _ , Heath.” 

“Um. So?”

“Because he's smiling at you like that? And he probably knows how bad you need that job. And.” Dean shook his head. “Just be careful man.”

It took a second. Dean watched as Heath's brow furrowed - a perfect copy of the looks his kids got when they couldn't figure out how to fit the puzzle pieces together. Then he saw the flush spreading across Heath's cheeks and he had a split second to laugh before Heath elbowed him in the ribs again.

“Sonuva-” Dean was almost certainly going to have a bruise.

“ _ Dean _ . Jesus.” Heath shook his head, face still red and embarrassed as he herded the kids towards an open section of bench. “Don’t make fun of me like that. Mr. Rhyno’s just nice to everybody.”

“Wait. Hold on.” Dean raised his eyebrows in surprise as his grin split his face “Am I thinkin’ about this the wrong way? Do I need’ta go warn  _ Mr _ . Rhyno instead of warning you?”

“Warn Dad about what?” Cheyenne asked, looking over at Dean with blue syrup smeared all over her face.

Dean, despite what people said about him, did know how to catch a hint. Especially when Heath was glaring at him like that.

  
“Warn him about how loud the cars are gonna be when they crash together.” Dean clapped his hands together “Just like that. Boom!”


	13. Rumor Has It

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (Kane - old scars)  
> Blood, mentions of violence

“And  _ that _ is why I highly encourage all of you to pursue a career in the exciting field of property insurance.”

Then the bell rang. It was lunch time, and the hungry students couldn't have gotten out of there quicker if they had been on fire. Or they would have, if Mr. Kane had not stood by the door to shake each of their hands as they filed out of the room. 

Mr. Kane had been a boring speaker. Even by Career Day standards - nowhere near as cool as the lady EMT or the welder from the chemical plant. But up close the students realized how physically intimidating he was right away. They also all noticed the jagged, ropey scar that slashed across the palm of his right hand as they shook with him, one by one.

It was the subject of much gossip in the cafeteria.

“That guy Kane used to be a biker, you know.”

“What?”

“Yeah. He grew up around here, him and his half-brother, but then he got involved with one of the biker gangs. Fell off the map for a while. Nobody knew where he went but it turns out that he was running drugs across the border.”

“No fucking way.”

“Dude, I swear. Burly motherfucker like him, you think he couldn’t do something like that?”

“Well. I mean, yeah, Kane's a big guy. But -”

“But nothing. So, he was running drugs and guns along the border, right? Except the DEA or the ATF or one of those government agencies had a guy undercover with the gang. And this undercover guy started trying to get real cozy with Kane, you know, thinks he can flip him and use him against the rest of the gang since Kane knew where all the bodies were buried.”

“Seriously? He killed people?”

“It's just a phrase, dude. But yeah. Probably.”

“Bullllllll shit.”

“Fuck you.”

“Jesus Christ you get your feelings hurt easy.”

“Whatever. Here I am trying to tell you some cool secret shit and you keep shooting me down.”

“Fine. Whatever. So did Kane rat out the rest of the gang or what?”

“Fuck no he didn't. The undercover guy had went on a run so it was just the two of them, him and Kane. And he makes the offer. Tells Kane that his whole crew is going down one way or another because of everything that the undercover guy has seen. Says, if you flip you won't do any time and we'll put you in witness protection. Sweet deal, right?”

“I guess…”

“Yeah, well, Kane doesn't see it like that. He pretends he's gonna go along with it, but then when the undercover guy drops his guard a little bit Kane attacks him. Tries to snap his neck, but the guy somehow managed to get free. Neither of ‘em had guns, so they're just beating the shit out of each other with their bare fists, all alone out in the middle of nowhere.”

“Fuck, dude.”

“Wait, if they were running guns why wouldn't they be armed?

“Yo, who even cares. What happened next?”

“Well, Kane got the other guy knocked around pretty good. But then he figures snapping the guy's neck is too good for a rat like him. So Kane goes and he gets this big old buck knife out of one of the bags on his bike, ‘cause he's planning on gutting the guy like a fish. Making an example out of him.”

“Gross.”

“Yeah. Except the undercover guy was sorta just faking how hurt he was. So he kicked Kane's feet out from underneath him. When Kane fell over he dropped the knife and the agent got it instead. But he didn't want to have to kill Kane, so instead of slicing his throat the guy just stabbed Kane through the hand. Pinned him to the ground with the blade, just like that.”

" _Fuck_."

“Shit, so they arrested him?”

“No way. Dude's hard core, even if he looks like a nerdy piece if shit these days. He laid there until the undercover guy to stumbled back over to the bikes to get a set of handcuffs or whatever. Then Kane pulled the knife out of his hand, and he was bleeding like crazy but he didn't scream at all because that would've given him away. He took that knife and he snuck up behind the undercover guy and he stabbed him in the back. Right through the heart.”

"Whoa."

“Then why the fuck is he selling insurance in this shit town?”

“That was just the end for him, man. Didn’t have it in him anymore. Kane left the gang, decided that he didn't want to keep living on the wrong side of the law so he took all the cash he'd saved up from drug running came back home.”

“Pfft.”

“What?”

“You want to know how I know that your story is bullshit? Cause the truth is way crazier than that.”

“Really?”

“Fuck yeah. I shouldn't even tell you though. It's too weird, none of you'll believe me.”

“Tch, come on.  _ Oooooh, I know the truth but I'm not tellin’. _ Put up or shut up dude.”

“Okay. Fine. But don't go spreading this around, okay?”

“Whatever.”

“Alright, so. You know who Kane's half-brother is right? That guy who runs the funeral home.”

“The Undertaker, yeah. That guy is scary as fuck.”

“Gives out great Halloween candy though. Full bars, my dude.”

“How’re you even still alive? Jesus Christ.”

“What?”

“You know what? Never mind.”

“Will you two just shut up? Anyways. They grew up together in the funeral home, which has got to be fucked up, you know? Like, coolers full of corpses and crazy chemicals and shit. No one ever wanted to talk to them, and as the two of them got older they ended up getting involved in some real dark stuff. They would do animal sacrifices and put curses on the kids they didn't like. But then one day Kane was messing around by himself and he took it too far, ended up getting possessed by a demon. The only way for his brother to get the demon out of him was to…”

\---

Kane felt it the moment that the serrated blade tore through his palm. The pain had been immediate, pure raw agony that blacked out everything and drove Kane down to his knees.

He was clenching his teeth together so hard that he was worried they might crack. His left hand clenched down around his right wrist as if squeezing hard enough could act as a tourniquet to hold back the pain that had shot up his entire arm. When the solid wall of hurt had finally receded enough that he could open his eyes, Kane had realized right away that he was definitely going to have to go to the hospital. 

Looking past the ruined mess of his palm, Kane saw that the tile floor of the kitchen was spattered with his blood. Hus brother was going to freak out when he came home and saw, except. The bagel and the bread knife were there too, right where he had dropped them after his over eager slicing had gone too far. Fuck. 

  
He was never going to live this one down.


	14. Cold Water

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (Dolph Ziggler & Neville, Alexa Bliss, Blake, Murphy - swimming hole)
> 
> discussed drug use and dealing, referenced Alexa/Nia

Neville figured that Dolph had to be going at least sixty-five down the gravel road even though the speed limit was less than half of that. Neville knew, because they had just flown past a sign that was riddled with bullet holes but still intact enough to read. He was trying to be cool and not grab the door handle whenever Dolph skidded around a curve, but then they went flying over a cattle guard and Neville’s knuckles went white as he grabbed onto what Dolph had called the ‘oh shit handle.’

“Sorry.” To his credit, Dolph actually did sound a little bit apologetic. Neville still glared at him for it. “I said I was sorry, geez.”

“Where are we even going?” Neville hadn’t seen anything but fields and hay bales and gravel roads for miles “I feel like I'm in Deliverance.”

Dolph made a sound that could have been him choking, could have been a laugh. “Dude. Have you ever even seen Deliverance? Like, Nev. Do you know what happens in that movie?”

“Um. No.” Neville felt his face heat up. He knew that he was somehow the butt of a joke, though he wasn't even sure what the joke was. “I thought that was just something people said. About being in the middle of nowhere.”

“Hmm. Fair enough.” Dolph shrugged, let it drop as he took another corner way too fast for Neville’s comfort, shooting up a rooster tail of dust into the still sky. “You know what else people say? Hold your horses. We’re almost there.”

The road started to drop, winding down from the flat fields into a low lying area that was thick with cottonwood trees. There were a few other cars parked in a wide area off to the side of the road and Dolph pulled in behind them.

Neville got out of the car, panting instantly when the flat heat of the day hit him. Off through the trees Nevill could see something bright and shimmering, sharp lights that made him squint when he looked towards them. Then he realized that he was watching the sun breaking on water.

Startled out of his reverie when Dolph tossed something at him, Neville snatched the towel out of the air a second before it would have slapped him in the face.

“Nice reflexes.” Dolph said as he slammed the trunk of the car shut, his own towel draped over his shoulder as he hefted a small cooler. “What? What're you looking so pissy about?”

“I'm not pissy.” Neville ducked his head. “You just didn't say we were going swimming.”

“So?”

“ _So_ , I mean it's a better surprise than going back to K-Mart.” Neville said. Dolph rubbed the back of his neck with his free hand, looking chagrined. “But I didn't bring a swimsuit or anything?”

“ _Ooooooh!_ ” Dolph grinned at Neville before he turned, started walking down a well worn trail in between the trees. “Sorry Nev, you didn't strike me as the freeballing type.”

Neville sputtered, followed him “I'm not! But what does that have to do with anything?”

“Well, then, you're set for swimmin’ aren't you? C’mon, just relax a little bit.”

\---

They only had two inner tubes between the three of them. Alexa got one by default and let the boys fight over the other, but like always Blake and Murphy ended up mostly splashing around while she propped her neatly painted toes up on the edge of the empty floaty.

They settled down after a while, floating on their backs in the cool water while the sun warmed their bellies. It was rare that all three roommates got the same day off, but when the stars aligned they always tried to make the best of it. Boring chore shit could wait for another time.

“When’d you say your girl’s coming to visit next?” Blake asked. “If the weather's good y’all should come swimming.”

Alexa scowled. She was laying back with her eyes closed - it was too bright to stare up at the sky, even with her blue sunglasses on, the backs of her eyelids hot and red. Before she got the chance to reply Alexa heard the unmistakable sound of Murphy splashing Blake.

“Hey! She’s already told us, Nia ain't ‘ _her girl_ ’. Be cool, man.”

It sounded like Blake splashed Murphy back,but he still said “Sorry, Alexa.”

“It's fine.”

“So. When’s Nia coming to visit next?” Blake tried again

Alexa shrugged, belatedly aware that the motion might not translate well when she was laying on an inner tube. “No idea. Before her finals, probably.”

Murphy hummed in acknowledgement, one second before he made a more disgusted sound.

“Ugh. Look who it is.”

Alexa pushed herself up, cracked her eyes open just in time to see Dolph Ziggler and his goofy looking friend coming out of the trees at the edge of the lake. They were too far away for Alexa to hear what they were talking about as they stripped down to their skivvies, but Ziggler was laughing and the other guy looked very uncomfortable.

The lake wasn't the type that had a beach or any type of shore at all. It had been a small quarry once, was the going theory, since all around the edge of the lake there were little stone cliffs that stuck up one, maybe two feet above the surface of the deep water. One huge tree had branches that stretched out over the water, and there was a worn rope swing that dangled down from one of them.

“Fucking Ziggler. It's like I can't get away from this damn guy.”

“I mean… we do buy weed from him.”

“Yeah but, like. At what cost? I swear his discount shit ain't worth it. How long does it take to sell an eighth? Not a fucking half hour, that's for sure.”

Blake and Murphy laughed. Alexa shook her head. “He always wants to hang out and compliment my nails and tell me how bummed he is that he can't do whip-its at the Arby's anymore.”

“Oh, I think he's waving at you.” Murphy offered.

“Yeah, I'd noticed.”Alexa laughed, mean, and didn't wave back. Eventually Dolph gave up.

Alexa and her boys were far from the only people at the swimming hole and everyone watched, amused, as Dolph leaned out on his tiptoes to snag the dangling rope swing and pull it back towards the ledge. Dolph was motioning with his free hand, explaining to his friend what everyone in the water already knew - you had to jump in. Then he pulled the rope as far back as he could to get a running start and swung out.

For a second it looked like Dolph wasn't going to jump, like he was just going to cling to the rope and swing back to the edge. Then, at the last possible moment, Dolph let go of the rope and twisted in something that was maybe half a somersault and half a jack knife. It didn’t end up turning into either. Dolph crashed into the water shoulders first, sending up up a huge splash of water.

Dolph’s friend went next. Alexa had mostly stopped paying attention, until she caught the motion out of the corner of her eye and watched as the guy took a graceful leap, swung out over the lake, and did a sweet backflip twist thing that dropped him into the water with a graceful dive.

  
“Holy shit.”


	15. Kingdoms of Rain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (Dean Ambrose - flu season)  
> sick!fic

The sky should have been light an hour ago. Dean did a double take when he glanced out his window and saw that it still looked dark. It wasn't, not really, but with the heavy grey clouds that hung over the town it seemed like the sun hadn’t even risen yet. Only the faintest bits of color smeared up around the horizon, grey and washed out purple, just enough light to see by as Dean locked his door and shoved his hands in his pockets.

A couple fat drops of rain spattered on Dean’s face as he walked - not enough to really be called rain. More like the threat of it. It was going to crack wide open and downpour on him, sooner or later, but not quite yet.

Fall was in full swing, the trees riotous yellows and oranges that were subdued in the low storm light, but it wasn’t cold enough to snow yet. Still, the wind had gone sharp and cutting and Dean was wearing the heaviest jacket that he owned, but when the wind whipped him it seemed to slip right through the seams. Cold air scraped along the over-hot, sensitive skin of his ribs and belly, made him nauseous with chills.

Daniel hadn’t called Dean about a job in a couple of weeks, which. It was fine. This time of year was always a little slow, Dean knew. Also he had maybe pissed Daniel off a little bit by asking him about five hundred times if he was planning on going to the next Gathering if the Juggalos. But Dean didn't think that Daniel would be  _ too _ vindictive about it. Weren't hippies all about peace and forgiveness and shit like that?

Regardless, Dean had saved up some money from doing road construction and roofing a couple of houses. It wasn't like he had expensive tastes. He just got fucking bored as hell if he went too long without doing something constructive, and Dean had a bad habit of getting into trouble when he got bored. Or, worse, his body seemed to realize that he was giving it a break and decided to let all the shit that he had managed to avoid catch up with him.

He could never remember the difference between a cold and the flu. Was the flu was the one that made your muscles ache like you were dying? That was probably it, then. Under the jacket Dean was sweating, even as he shivered in the wind. His throat felt like it had been laced with broken glass every time he swallowed, hot and swollen even when he didn't, and he had a ringing headache that seemed to have been driven right down the center of his brain.

Trying to sleep had been an exercise in futility all night, since Dean’s nose had been so clogged up that he could barely breathe. Then, when morning had come and Dean had given up on sleep and finally cracked - decided to walk to the store for Nyquil and soup and whiskey - it was like the tap had been opened and the snot flowed freely. The skin between his nose and his upper lip was going to be chapped as fuck from where he kept dragging his sleeve across it.

There wasn't much traffic on the road, at least not on the road that Dean was walking along, but he still kept to the far edge of the sidewalk out of habit. Those potholes weren't completely filled with water yet but they would be soon enough. Already the road was wet, looking oil slicked in places, shimmery and rainbowed. It was sort of pretty to look at as he walked, but Dean still knew that getting soaked by a jackass who couldn't be bothered to avoid a puddle would be maybe the only way to make this bad day even shittier.

Dean never should have thought that. He should have fucking known better. It wasn't five minutes later that the Walmart came into view and Dean automatically checked for his wallet and came up empty handed.

Fuck. Fuck, fuck,  _ fuck _ .

Because not only had Dean forgotten to grab his wallet or any cash, he also realized belatedly that his pockets were completely empty. He'd been so out of it that morning, sick and exhausted, that he'd forgotten to grab everything that he never left without. Wallet, cigarettes, lighter, and, oh yeah, his fucking keys.

Dean hadn’t remembered to grab any of that necessary shit but he had sure as fuck had remembered to lock himself out of his trailer.

For what seemed like an hour, even though in reality it couldn't have been more than a minute, Dean stood dumb in the middle of the sidewalk. Patting himself down, as if trying enough times would magically make his keys appear in his pocket. Or maybe he had remembered to grab a fucking flux capacitor so that he could DeLorean his dumb ass back in time and punch himself in the fucking face…

Dean took a deep breath. His head was pounding and he was burning up and he just needed to calm down. This wasn't. This wasn't the first time that Dean had locked himself out and it wasn't. It wasn't the end of the world. 

He could have called a locksmith or he could have broken out on of his windows when he made it back home, but both of those things would have ended up costing Dean money that he didn't want to spend. When Heath's kids got home from school Dean would borrow Boomer, boost him up so the kid could climb in through the high little window above the bathroom sink and Boomer would unlock the front door. 

But that was hours and hours and hours away and Dean was just so, so tired. For a while Dean just stood there with his head down and his hands in his pockets and his eyes closed. There was nothing else he could do. There was nothing else he could do, this was just what his life was.

Dean heard the sound of a vehicle driving up behind him, heard the crunch of tires slowing down and the whine of a bad set of brakes that weren't quite dead yet as the driver stopped on the side of the road. Right next to Dean, from the sound of it. When Dean cracked his eyes open, he didn't recognize the guy in the truck. Well, he didn't _know_ him but Dean did sort of recognize him.  It was one of those weird fundamentalists that lived on the edge of town, the one that was about as big as about two of Dean put together.

Usually, these guys just told Dean that the wages of sin were death and that Dean was going to burn in a lake of fire for an eternity. Usually, Dean yelled back at them and told them to fuck off. Dean’s throat hurt too bad to yell, but he was already gearing himself up for confrontation. 

Instead, the guy just asked “Are you okay?”

Dean blinked, caught flat footed. That was. Not how the script was supposed to go. He realized then for the first time that the guy wasn't driving one of the crazy scripture-mobiles that Dean was used to seeing. Or maybe it had been, once, under that shitty spray paint cover up job. Also, he didn't look as dead-eyed and judgmental as Dean had assumed he would. Instead he just looked...concerned, maybe.

“Yeah.” Dean said, his voice low and hoarse. He swiped the sleeve of his jacket across his face to wipe away the snot and the wet places where the rain had been landing on him. “Yeah. I'm fine.”


	16. White Cedar

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (Jason Jordan/Chad Gable - health insurance)
> 
> trans* character

It had been snowing when JJ had shown up to work, and he had watched the snow plows trundle by intermittently as the sun rose but the snow continued to fall. But something weird must have happened with the temperature while JJ was busy restocking the cooler and telling Dean Ambrose that he was in fact two dollars short (and that no, JJ wasn't going to ‘put it on his tab’). When he snuck out to start his car, well. All that fluffy snow had turned into jagged clumps of ice.

He had to break a chunk of it off the door handle just to get in the car. The vehicle he shared with Chad ran reliably enough, thank god, but it was also pretty much a piece of shit. The damn thing took forever to warm up in the winter, so JJ always tried to remember to get it started before the end of his shift. Otherwise he would be sitting and shivering and waiting for the defrost to get it's act together. He wasn't Chad. He didn't want to hang around bullshitting with the regulars in the gas station for any longer than he had to.

There was still a thick layer of ice on the windshield after JJ had clocked out, but it had warmed up enough on the underside that he was able to slide it off in cracking sheets.

Chad was sitting at the folding table in the kitchen with his back to the door when JJ walked in, but he turned around and smiled at JJ as he shrugged out of his coat. JJ was well attuned to the many different Smiles of Chad - this one was bright and happy and underlaid by a current of exhaustion that made JJ’s heart hurt to see.

He could see that Chad was holding his  cell phone up to his ear as he asked “Hey, JJ. How was work?”

“Work was fine. Aren't you on the phone?”

“Put me on hold.”

“How long have you been talking to them?”

“Uh,” Chad twitched his head over his shoulder to check the clock on the stove “They opened at seven so, like three hours now?”

“Hmph.” JJ sat in the chair next to Chad, looked at him closely. “I thought you were sick.”

“I am.” Chad blew his nose, as if to illustrate his point, dunked the wad of toilet paper in the trash can beside him that he had already filled more than half way. “But I still gotta deal with this insurance mess. Figured if I had to use sick time then I better make the most of it -”

Then JJ heard a voice come on through the other end of the phone. Chad got a determined look in his eye as he shifted the full force of his focus back to dealing with whatever new health insurance representative that he had been transferred to. JJ squeezed his hand in solidarity, got up from the table and listened to Chad's side of the conversation as he wandered off to change out of his work clothes.

“Hi Rhonda! How are you doing this morning? Good, good. Listen, I'm calling because when I tried to pick up my prescriptions the other day the pharmacy showed that my insurance had stopped covering - oh! Last name on the account is Gable, G-A-B-L-E, date of birth is…”

JJ had a few free hours before he had to show up at his second job. Usually he would have shoveled down some food and crashed into bed as soon as possible to catch a nap until he had to get ready to leave again. But usually Chad would have already been gone to work and not just sitting there sick, and miserable for reasons that had nothing to do with his cold.

“Okay, so you're telling me that my authorization from my doctor expired. I need to get a new one of those, right? And is that just a new letter from her, or do I need to have another complete physical?”

JJ kept track of the conversation as he moved around the tiny kitchen, as he shoved a couple of eggos in the toaster oven and got out the stuff to make one of those gross protein shakes that Chad just loved. 

Anyone else would have been shouting or complaining or gritting the words out from between clenched teeth. But Chad was just as calm as a cucumber as he scratched his notes down on a yellow legal pad, excusing himself to the lady on the other end of the phone each time he had to stop to blow his nose. Hell, JJ could never handle himself with half of the grace that Chad displayed whenever he had to deal with doctors or the  health insurance company. Then again, Chad had a whole lot more experience with that type of thing than JJ did. 

Practice must have made perfect since Chad seemed to be a goddamn miracle worker when it came to wading through bureaucracy. But JJ still couldn't help but wish that he could do something, anything to help besides making food and giving backrubs, smoothing his hands down across the skin of Chad's ribs that got sensitive from where his binder bunched up sometimes.

Because practice may have made perfect, but JJ had been watching Chad go through this for years and years and he knew for a fact that practice never made it easy.  JJ never failed to notice the way that Chad's shoulders went stiff and crept up around his ears when he had to ask the same question again and again, just phrased differently until he could suss out what he needed to know. The way that Chad's eyes got tight around the corners. The way the corner of each page of notes was like a minefield of little dots, dented from where he would dig the tip of the pen into the paper as he listened.

But Chad never so much as raised his voice or sounded like he was going to crack. Chad was a champion, JJ had no doubts that he would get this shit straightened out.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Plz let me know if I am fucking this one up or any particularly glaring inaccuracies re: dealing with insurance for these issues. I'm just using my experience with an entirely different set of issues, not sure how well it translates


	17. Out of Range

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (Dean Ambrose, Daniel Bryan - road construction)  
> implied drug use
> 
> Apologies to Brendan Fraser.

It was burning hot out, hotter yet because they had been putting fresh asphalt on the highway for hours. Daniel always made sure that people took breaks so that no one got heat stroke but it was still rough. The sky was flat and blue as far as the eye could see, empty of clouds that could have, just maybe, crossed in front of the  high noon sun to give Dean a little bit of goddamn shade.

Dean was taking his lunch break, sitting on the tailgate of Daniel's pickup truck and looking up at the sky. One of his eyes was shut and the other squinted tight as he looked up at the hot white hole of the sun, at the couple of birds that were circulating lazily on the air currents above him. His free hand was holding up a Bugle, like he was a man lost in the wilderness trying to make one last ditch offering to god. 

Daniel had come across the flattened down grass of the road ditch where all of the personal vehicles were parked, got his lunch box out of the truck and hopped up on the tailgate next to Dean. He took off his hard hat and wiped the sweat off of his face and only then did he ask

“Dean. What the fuck are you doing?”

“Feeding the birds.”

“Are you fucking high?” Daniel tried to get a look at Dean’s eyes. Dean kept his mouth shut, chose not to perjure himself. “A vulture isn't gonna swoop down and snatch that chip out of your hand.”

“Actually,” Dean said “It's a Bugle.”

Then he ate it.

“Do you ever eat anything besides gas station garbage?”

Dean pinned him with a serious look. “Excuse me. These greasy rolled corn cones are not garbage,  _ Daniel _ . They are delicious.”

“Well shit, now that you've described them as ‘greasy rolled corn cones’ I guess I have to recall my judgement.” Daniel rolled his eyes, took a glass bowl with a lid on it out of his cooler. Dean could see through the glass that it held some kind of dark green sludge with orange chunks in it.

Dean whistled, low. “Oh, now I see that you calling my food garbage must have been a compliment. Where the fuck did you get that? You scrape it off the bottom of a dumpster outside a fuckin’ nuclear reactor?

“It's lentil soup.” Daniel said, almost prim, which was a weird look on a dude with a bushy beard. “Brie made it for me.”

They were quiet for a while, then. Dean crunched on his Bugles and Daniel ate his ‘lentils’, or whatever the fuck they were, and they watched as the cars crawled by on the highway. 

It had been down to one lane for a couple of days, the pilot car trundling back and forth with lines of annoyed travelers behind it. Seeing that ire - the drivers through their windshields, all but grinding their teeth as they had to slow down for the construction - always made Dean grin. Hell, sometimes he would even wave at them a little bit in between shoveling asphalt. 

No one ever seemed to notice.

If the yearly bouts of road construction seemed never ending to the people who had to drive through it, they clearly had never stopped to think about what it must have been like for the poor bastards like Dean who had to actually do the work. In all honesty, he didn't really mind it that much. The constant sunburns sucked ass, but it wasn’t like he had ever cared about being dirty. Which was good, because with the road work there was really no way around it.

Dean knew that he pretty much permanently smelled like hot tar. That, and the layers of grime and road dust that got caked into his sweaty body were going to take more effort to fully remove than he would be able to muster until… until Christmas, at least.

“So Brie and I watched a good movie last night.”

“Yeah?”

“Mmmhmm.” Daniel was scooping the last traces of goop out of his bowl. “Brendan Fraser spent, like, thirty years in this fallout shelter. Then when he came out of it he -”

“Wait.” Dean cut him off. “Brendan Fraser spent thirty years in a fallout shelter?”

“Yeah. So -”

“How old  _ is _ that dude then? I remember watching that one movie. You know. That one -” Dean snapped his fingers as it came to him “That one where he fucks the devil.”

“I don’t think Brendan Fraser fucked the devil in Bedazzled.”

“Pfft. Whatever. But there was no way he was over forty in that movie.”

Daniel just looked at him, lost. “What?”

“If Brendan Fraser spent thirty years in a fallout shelter. Then let's say it took five years for him to break into the movie business, he would've had to have been like forty when Bedazzled came out.” 

“You realize that Brendan Fraser didn't really spend thirty years hiding out underground because he thought there had been a nuclear apocalypse, right?”

“Oh, shit, now I get it. Dude was just playing the long con. Like some Ocean's Eleven type shit. I loved him in that movie.”

“The fuck? Brendan Fraser wasn't in Ocean's Eleven, Dean. But he was in the movie Blast. From. The. Past. Which is the movie that I am talking about. Where he spent thirty years in a fallout shelter.”

“So Brendan Fraser did grow up in a fallout shelter. Daniel, I gotta say, you are confusing the fuck out of me here.”

“Fucking - It's a  _ movie _ , Dean, not a documentary about the real life of the actor Brendan Fraser. Jesus fucking -”

Dean couldn't hold back his grin any longer, and Daniel must have noticed it a second after he had started to lose it because he sputtered out, huffing indignantly as he put his hard hat back on.

“This is what I get, isn't it?” Daniel griped as he shut his lunch box and hopped down from the tailgate. Dude was short as hell. “This is what I get for trying to make polite conversation with you.”

“You're the one who told me that your best friend Brendan Fraser lived in a fallout shelter for thirty years. Also.” Dean laughed, tipped the foil bag up so that he could dump the last shards of Bugles in his mouth. “Why the fuck do we keep using the dude's full name?”

“I'm sorry, are  _ you _ on a first name basis with Brendan Fraser? You don't want to get on that guy's bad side. Didn't you just tell me that he fucked the devil?”


	18. Love Like This

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (Alexa Bliss & Nia Jax, Buddy Murphy - two a.m.)
> 
> not talking about feelings is the best way to deal with them, definitely

At first Alexa had thought that it was the rain that had woken her up. When she snapped into consciousness the storm that was pounding against her window, loud incessant plinking against the glass in the darkness.

For a while Alexa just laid there on her back with Nia lying on her shoulder, breathing deep and even. Nia had gotten in late, having driven for hours down through the first stringers of the hard spring storm. She didn't need Alexa tossing around and waking her up, so Alexa tried to kick all of the excess shit out of her mind and get back to sleep. 

Then she heard a loud clap that wasn't thunder. One of the cabinets in the kitchen slamming shut.

Alexa climbed out of bed, did her best to extricate herself without waking Nia up before she slipped out of her room, pulled the door shut gently behind her before she padded down the hallway. The tile was cold on her bare feet, and she scraped one of her hands across her scalp to push her hair back as she turned the corner into the kitchen.

Murphy was sitting on one of the barstools at the counter, wearing a pair of Batman boxers and nothing else. One of his forearms was braced on the top of it and his head was sort of hung down, his hair in his face as his body listed to the side. As Alexa moved into the room to get a better view she noticed that he had a jar of peanut butter open in front of him, a napkin that was covered in a small hill of chocolate chips, and three or four crumpled Smarties wrappers.

Murphy hadn't noticed her yet, so Alexa watched as he pulled the spoon out of his mouth and scooped up another lump of peanut butter. Then he flipped the spoon over and smudged it into the chocolate chips. He raised it up, squinted at it as if examining a work of art, and then shoved it into his mouth.

Alexa tapped her fingernails against the wall a couple of times so that he wouldn't startle when she said “Murphy. You okay?”

Murphy raised his head up to look at her. Blinked a couple of times, slow and deliberate as he dredged for words. “Yeah. Blood sugar’s low.”

“No shit, I'd guessed that.” Alexa rolled her eyes, even though he'd gone back to scraping another spoonful of peanut butter out of the bottom of the jar and wasn't paying attention. “Bad?”

“Not too bad. I got the sweats but, uh…” Murphy trailed off as he chased an errant chocolate chip, left a smudge of peanut butter on the napkin. Alexa saw that he was in fact shivering a bit, knew if she touched his skin that it would be clammy and cold. “Uh, not shaking too bad, so. Goin’ back to bed soon.”

“Don't make yourself sick, idiot.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Murphy managed a smile in her direction. “I know I'm over correcting, but I'll, uh. I'll correct for it.”

“Alright. Just yell if you need help or anything.”

Murphy nodded, solemn, his mouth working around a clump of peanut butter and chocolate.

He was already looking better so Alexa left him to it, went back to her room. When she attempted to sneak back into bed she saw that Nia’s eyes were open - so much for the stealth mission. Nia watched Alexa sleepily as she slid under the covers, curled back up where it was warm and cozy.

“Everything alright?” Nia asked, sounding like she was still half asleep.

“Yeah. Murphy’s blood sugar tanked but he's okay.” Alexa saw Nia’s eyes get wide and realized that ‘tanked’ might have been too strong of a word. “No, seriously, he's okay. He's busy eating all my goddamn chocolate chips. Trust me, he's fine.”

Nia looked at her with sleepy eyes for another couple of second before she was satisfied with whatever was on Alexa’s face. Then she yawned and moved closer and Alexa was struck - not for the first time - by how goddamn good her hair smelled.

“So what's on the schedule for tomorrow?” Nia asked, squinted her eyes as she tried to focus on the glowing numbers of Alexa’s alarm clock. “Or today, I guess.”

“Dunno. A few of guys I went to highschool with said they were gonna have a big bonfire but if the rain keeps up that’s not gonna happen.” Alexa stopped to think for a couple of seconds and the room was quiet except for their breathing, for the sounds of the storm outside.

“We could go see a movie or something.” Alexa suggested finally. She thought Nia might have fallen back asleep in the lull, but instead she asked

“This town has a movie theatre?”

It was an old joke, back from Alexa’s first semester up at the college when they had met. Almost a year ago now, Alexa had told Nia about where she was from one time when they had been hanging out, and ever since Nia would always act shocked that they had completely normal stuff out in the sticks. 

“This town has  _ two _ movie theaters, actually.” Alexa replied, haughty. “One's a drive-in. But my mom works at the normal one, so we can get in for free.”

“Ooohhh, free movies.” Nia mumbled into her pillow. “Knew I was sleepin’ my way to the top.”

“Yep. Just gotta stick with me.”

For a second Alexa was worried that she might have made it weird. Because they weren't. They weren't putting a label on it or anything. Neither of them were sleeping with other people, but it wasn’t because they were, like, committed or anything. 

They hadn’t talked about it, really. Maybe once Alexa had enough money saved up to go back to college they would have to talk about it, but. Alexa had gone almost her entire life without having to deal with serious emotions and she didn't know how to put words on any of the shit that she was thinking and -. Then Nia made a noise that was probably a laugh, and Alexa grinned against her hair. Okay, good, everything was fine.

Alexa knew that Nia had to be mostly asleep at that point. So her heart only skipped one beat when Nia shifted and murmured “You just want me to meet your mom.”

Alexa fisted her hands in the sheets as she didn't deny it. She didn't say ‘ _ no _ ’ or ‘ _ of course not’ _ or try to laugh it off. Instead she just swallowed and looked out the dark window and said

  
“Maybe. Yeah.”


	19. The Man Comes Around

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (Luke Harper - judgement day)  
> violence, breaking and entering, drugs

Luke heard about the fire on the radio in the morning, but Bray asked him to wait until dusk to begin his mission. That Bray was willing to indulge him in this was something that Luke was eternally grateful for, and besides. Bray's logic was sound - it would not do for half the town to see Luke on the hunt. So he nodded and took his leave of the Prophet and spent the rest of the day in silent prayer and preparation.

When the sky had begun to go dark Luke retrieved his keys and went to his truck. Bray was waiting for him. Bray reached up and put his hands on the sides of Luke's face, kissed him on the forehead. 

“Find him.”

Luke nodded.

There was a low fog that settled heavy as night fell, and it made the world seem subdued and quiet. As if the earth itself knew of Luke's intention and did not dare to interfere with his divine mission. 

The place was way out on the edge of town, far enough down a back road that no one would have driven by unless they were looking for it. Police tape was still strung up around where the house had burned down, but the site was empty of people. The only sign of life was a scruffy raccoon that trundled away into the underbrush when Luke rolled up with his bright headlights glaring. 

A light rain had started to fall as Luke got out of the truck. Shushing patter of droplets as they fell against the leaves of the trees, the hood of the truck, the wide span of Luke's shoulders.

The house hadn’t burned completely to the ground. A few walls were still standing after a fashion, jagged and blackened, like the bones of a skeleton after all of the soft flesh had been stripped away by scavengers. Luke ducked under the tape and walked among the corpse. He nudged through the ashes with the toes of his boots, and though Luke found nothing that the police had not already collected he was not discouraged.

Luke was not a detective. He did not intend to solve this crime, mostly because he already knew who had committed it. It was the same person that was always to blame when a remote house burned down.

A man could only survive so many meth lab fires before his luck ran out. Luke intended to hunt his quarry down and take his pound of flesh before that day. Bray had assured Luke that the good Lord would not mind Luke taking what was owed to him in pain and suffering before the devil got the rest of Cody Rhodes.

But the man was paranoid and surprisingly canny - Cody had somehow eluded Luke for years since Luke's release, back and forth across the town and through more than a handful of scorched labs. Luke had discovered through his own methods that even the closest of Cody’s friends were not privy to the location of his hideouts. But after each one had burned down, Cody might stay with his friends for a couple of days before he set up a new operation and disappeared into the hills again.

Luke had missed Cody before. He did not intend to miss him again.

Luke drove by the house that Konnor and Viktor were living in, a rundown bungalow on the edge of town, so Luke parked the truck a ways away and walked back. He let himself in through the unlocked front door and took stock of the situation, familiarized himself with the layout of the place.

Luke moved from room to room, silent as the grave, looking for any place where someone could have been hiding. There was no one in the house except for Luke. It was a wreck, of course. All of the pipes had been ripped out of the walls, but the electric was still on so the few bare light bulbs threw long shadows, yellow and sickly, and most of the rooms were vacant save for discarded filth. 

What little furniture there was had been ripped and ruined in fits of either rage or paranoia. One bathroom had been stripped of appliances and wallpapered with aluminum foil, a surprisingly thorough job for a couple of tweakers, but Luke didn't particularly care about the flights of fancy that preoccupied drug fueled minds

The kitchen seemed to be the most frequented room. There was a scarred table that was scattered with paraphernalia, and besides the standard trash there were a bunch of empty two liter bottles piled in the cabinets. By the labels they had once been filled with Mountain Dew, but were now packed full of used needles. 

 

Luke waited. He could have waited inside of the house, but if they walked in and saw him before he could get between them and the door then they would turn tail and run. He would probably be able to catch them, but he didn't want to take the chance. Besides, Luke didn't mind standing in the woods across the road. 

It was peaceful, quiet in the sprinkling rain. He could stand and breathe and look up at the heavens in peace while he spun the crowbar through his fingers. Little droplets of water went flying off the end of it, disappearing into the night.

Sometime around one in the morning Konnor showed up. Alone. It was a better opportunity than Luke could have anticipated - he knew from experience that they went almost everywhere together. 

Two could be difficult to deal with, especially if they were high. One would be easy. Luke waited a little longer, passing the time by the breaths that he took. Then he walked out of the trees and across the road and right through the front door. 

Some people said that it should have been impossible for a man as large as Luke to move as quietly as he did. They were wrong. 

In God, all things were possible.

Konnor was bent over the kitchen table with his back to the doorway when Luke slid into the room. He didn't notice his visitor at all until Luke swung the crowbar into one of the cabinets. The thin wood laminate shattered with a punched out sound that was much quieter than Luke had thought it would be, but still plenty loud enough to get Konnor’s attention.

Luke pulled the crowbar out of the jagged maw of the ruined cabinet, and splinters flew through the air as he stepped forward. Konnor spun around and his eyes went wide in an expression that Luke had long ago learned to identify - fear, mixed with resignation. 

“Oh fuck. Not you again.”

Then, Luke was on him. He kicked Konnor’s legs out from under him and pushed him so that he crashed down back-first against the grimy tile. Konnor struggled to escape but Luke pinned him down easily with the weight of his body, the length of the crowbar held against Konnor’s neck. Against the fragile windpipe and the rivers of blood that coursed so close and vulnerable under Konnor’s pock marked skin. 

“Where is he.” Luke said, and his voice rumbled through the room like the voice of Judgement.

Luke was still soaking wet from waiting in the rain for hours, and fat droplets of water dripped off of his beard and onto Konnor’s face. He pressed the iron harder against Konnor neck. 

  
Except, then, the lights didn't even flicker. They just went out.


	20. Night Light

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (Dean Ambrose, Chris Jericho - bar darts)  
> drinking, betting, implied violence

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [['301' is a common type of darts game where players start with 301 points and attempt to reach zero. When a player reaches zero, they win and the game is over. If a player scores more than the total required to reach zero, the player "busts" and the score returns to the score that was existing at the start of the turn.]]

Dean wasn't the type of guy who did a lot of drinking in bars. He tended to end up getting in fights if he was hammered around too many other people, and, also. Why the fuck would he pay four dollars for one damn drink when he could get a thirty rack of cheap beer for twenty bucks? Ridiculous.

So Dean never bothered going to the bar, not unless he was feeling ornery and knew that he could pretty much guarantee he'd be able to hustle back more money than he spent by the end of the night. With the January darts tournament having just wrapped up, there were going to be plenty of guys who thought that they were hot shit.

Dean was on a… fuck, what was it called. A bell curve. No, that wasn't right. It was a  _ reverse _ bell curve, when it came to how well he could aim in relation to how drunk he was. He started off okay - nothing special, but he could keep the darts on the board and in a loose group. Or he would have, if he would have showed up to the bar completely sober.

Dean didn’t think that there were enough suckers in this town for him to win the money it would take to cover how much it took him to get really hammered on beer, and all the games of darts besides.

So Dean was already feeling nice and warm when he left home on Friday night and made his way through the cold night to the bar. He took the shortcut behind the laundromat and the check cashing place, ended up trudging through the old, dirty snow for a bit and getting his boots wet. He left a puddle of melted ice on the floor as he bellied up to the bar and ordered a drink and cast his eye out for some shitheel who would see him fucking up at the dartboard and try to take advantage.

There were a few likely faces in the crowd. Dean had run this trick on most of them before, but he only did this type of thing once or twice a year. He knew from experience that most of them would have either forgotten or, once they got a couple drinks in them, they would want to try and prove that the were better than him anyways. 

Because once Dean started drinking at the bar his ability to aim went downhill fast. Dean didn’t even have to try to be worse than he was, since he completely missed the board with at least one dart out of three in every round. 

The electronic pay-per-play dart board machine actually kicked Dean out of one game - he'd thrown for probably six rounds without managing to hit the last 11 points he would have needed finish off the 301. Welp. That was his cue to get another drink.

Chris Jericho wandered over and leant against the bar next to Dean as Dean waited for his beer. Dean hadn’t seen the guy around for a while, sure as fuck hadn’t missed him. But Jericho was a cocky son of a bitch, which meant

“Sick of playing with yourself Ambrose?”

“Never.” Dean said, rolled his eyes but otherwise didn't acknowlede Chris’ joke.

“You sure? I'll pay for the next game.”

“Well, in that case.” Dean grabbed his bottle from the bar and turned back towards the dartboard, stumbled a little “You're on.”

Dean tanked bad in the next two games, getting down to 151 and a 97 while Chris zeroed out his 301 both times. The bar darts were shitty - bent tips, badly weighted - but Dean had never thrown anything better and he had gotten used to the feel of them over his terrible practice rounds.

“I do better under pressure anyway. C’mon.” Dean swallowed the last of his beer. “You wanna put money on the next one?”

Jericho actually laughed at him. “You? Get better under pressure?”

“Pfft. Classic Jericho.” Dean grumbled, tossed his empty bottle into a trash can where it bounced off of a stack of others, the bright sharp sound of clinking glass.

“The fuck’s that supposed to mean?”

“Y’do so great now. But you're scared to put anything on the line to make it serious.”

Jericho scowled, took his scarf off and set it on the back of a chair. “Fine.”

Dean got another beer, which he pretty much chugged as he lost the next game. Then when he dug his wallet out to fork over the ten bucks to a smirking Jericho he stopped, pulled his hand back and asked

“Double or nothing?”

“You got the money for that Ambrose? Twenty whole dollars?”

“Yeah, I do, fuck you.”

Dean had started to feel it. He may have been starting to slur, his balance unsteady, but he was almost where he needed to be. Because Dean had reached the other end of his reverse bell curve. He was on the upswing, and when he got back over to the dartboard and he swung his head around the rest of the room may have been a spinning blur but that red and white dartboard was right at the hard center of it all.

They played 301 again and Dean squeaked it out, hitting zero while Jericho was stuck at 5 after he had busted on the last turn.

“Bullshit.”

“Eh, you almost had it. Still gotta pay up though."

“Again.”

“What?”

“Play me again.” Jericho was clearly trying to keep his voice from sounding too pissed, but the scowl on his face gave him away. “Double or nothing. You want another drink? I'll buy.”

“Sure.” Dean grinned, like he wasn't one hundred percent aware of what Chris was trying to pull by getting him extra hammered. “Thanks, man.”

Dean drank the beer that Chris brought back and he absolutely killed it the next game. Chris was starting to get frustrated, sloppy, and Dean had to be careful, made sure not to hit a bunch of bullseyes or triple twenties right off of the bat. He figured that he could get at least one more game out of Chris after this one and clean up a neat eighty dollars if he didn’t do too well and blow it.

Dean had been wrong. He didn't get one more game. He got three. All of them double or nothing, which meant -

“Whoa, man.” Dean held his hands up before he agreed to last one, swaying back and forth a little bit. “I don’t got that much money. That's, like... three hundred bucks?”

“Three twenty.” Jericho grit out as he got right up in Dean’s face, poked him hard in the sternum “You're gonna fucking play me again, Ambrose.”

Dean hiccupped, put a hand out and caught himself on the back of the nearest chair, tried to steady himself and stand up straighter. He wanted to slap Jericho’s goddamn hand away as hard as he could, but he needed to keep it together a little longer so he just shook his head and slurred

“Hey, sure. Calm down okay? But this, this’s the last one for me alright?”

“Yeah.” Chris said, sniffed down his nose at Dean. “Alright.”

Dean had reached the point where he was officially done with this bullshit. He was starting to get tired and nauseous, but mostly Dean was sick of fucking around and having to deal with Jericho’s shitty attitude.  So he finished the whole thing in two rounds, getting from 301 down to 0 with six darts by hitting a bunch of triples and two double bullseyes.

“Cool beans.” Dean said, as Jericho threw all his darts on the floor in a rage. “Reeeaallll mature. Pay up, let's go.”

The bad thing about this plan, the part that Dean never seemed to remember until it was too late, was that even if getting hammer drunk made Dean’s aim excellent, well. He was still fucking wasted. Sober Dean was not a paragon of virtue, but Drunk Dean was even less predisposed to take time and consider possible consequences.

Drunk Dean could hit the windshield of a spinning car with a half-empty can of Steel Reserve without even having to aim. He could put a glass bottle full of gasoline through the window of the Cracker Barrel, dead center of that plate glass from sixty feet away. He could whip the ass of almost anyone in a game of darts, but he wouldn't stop to think about whether or not the guy he was pissing off had a temper.

By the time Dean remembered the way that this was going to go, it was far too late to turn the tide. Not that Dean would have wanted to, even if he could have. It was late and it was very dark and the hard snowpack under his boots looked red and gritty in the flickering light of the buzzing neon of the bar sign. He had made it halfway across the parking lot before Jericho caught up to him, but Dean -

  
Dean was ready for him.


	21. Love of the Common People

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (Heath & Rhyno, Dean, Heath's kids - birthday party, part 1/2)

“It's okay that I asked Mojo to cover for me, right?” Heath asked. He was leaning in the doorway of Rhyno’s office after he had clocked out, apron slung over his shoulder. “It's my girls’ birthday that Saturday.”

“As long as Mojo’s okay with it.” Rhyno had shrugged. He didn't have to check to know that Heath switching with Mojo meant that Mojo and Zack were going to be on overlapping shifts with him, but that was. Fine. “Just make sure it's marked it on the schedule.”

“Thanks Mr. Rhyno.” Heath had beamed at him, like Rhyno had done him a favor instead of just maintaining his policy on covering shifts. “They're turning six.”

“That’s. Nice?” Rhyno hadn’t meant for it to sound like a question, but. Was it nice? He didn't actually know, didn't really know what to say in response to things like that. 

“Yeah, it's great.” Heath smiled even wider, something that Rhyno would not have thought possible before. “Hang on, here - you should come!” 

Heath pulled a brightly colored card out of his back pocket, set it down on the desk in front of Rhyno. It was decorated with a smiling dinosaur and some palm trees, and there was a blank space in the middle where the details had been handwritten. Presumably by Heath, whose penmanship was awful.

Jayla and Jolene were having a birthday party, starting at three, and Rhyno was invited.

“Well, I appreciate the invitation Heath.” Rhyno said, as he positioned the card to the side of his computer monitor. 

“Oh. Okay.” Heath said, and he didn’t sound sad. He just didn't sound happy anymore either. Like he thought Rhyno had shot down his offer instead of the truth, which was simply that

“I'm working until five on Saturday.” Rhyno offered, as he straightened some papers on his desk that may or may not have actually needed straightening. "Sorry."

“Oh. Well, you can always stop by later.” Heath offered “I'll try and save a cupcake for you, alright?”

Rhyno almost didn't go. 

He told himself that he had plenty of good reasons to decline the invitation. The birthday parties he'd been to in high school and college had been a disasters. He was pretty sure there wouldn't be anyone forcing him to shotgun beers at a party for six year olds, but he didn't know that for sure. Also, that was it's own problem. Rhyno liked kids, but he was genuinely clueless about them. Waylon had been easy because he was too young to have many opinions, but. 

Two years ago on Halloween a kid had rung his doorbell and told Rhyno that he had a really scary costume. He had been wearing jeans and a t-shirt. If Rhyno went to a birthday party for children he was almost guaranteed to accidentally scar them for life or something.

In the end, he went anyway.

At first, Rhyno thought he had put in the wrong address. The single-wide trailer he had pulled up in front of looked tiny, but even with all the cars parked out front Rhyno recognized Heath's van right away - the driver's side door was silver while the rest of it was faded red - and Heath standing on the front steps holding Waylon and talking to two guys who looked too similar to be anything other than Heath's brothers. There were a bunch of kids wrestling in the yard with the guy that Rhyno remembered from the demolition derby, and.

For a second Rhyno considered letting himself be a coward, driving away. Then he remembered that Heath had invited him, had wanted Rhyno to stop by even if he was late. Then he saw Heath wave at him, and it was too late for him to escape.

Waylon made grabby hands at Rhyno as soon as he saw him, and Rhyno’s internal joy that the baby seemed to remember him was overridden by terror when Heath handed Waylon to Rhyno without any hesitation.

“Be careful” Heath said, as if Rhyno’s heart wasn't already in his throat “He just woke up from a nap so he's squirmy. Hayden, Harlan, this is my boss Rhyno.”

“Arby's boss or Walmart boss?” One of them asked. This close Rhyno could see that they were identical twins, even though the haircuts and neck tattoos didn't match.

“Um.” Rhyno winced and leaned away as Waylon grabbed at his ear “Arby's.”

Rhyno hadn’t even realized that the situation had been tense until Heath's brothers visibly relaxed, leaning back against the vinyl siding of the trailer.

“Oh, cool.” Said the other twin “I love the Big Hot Ham.”

“That's Hardee's.” Rhyno corrected them before he could stop himself.

“Hmm. Well, you should sell the Big Hot Ham. Can you do that?”

It turned out that Heath's brothers had a lot of unconventional suggestions for menu items, most of which were big, hot, and involved ham. 

After what seemed like an eternity of the most bizarre conversation Rhyno had even been a part of, the two of them said their goodbyes and whistled loud enough to make Rhyno wince. About half the kids that had been playing in the yard peeled off and and piled into two of the cars.

“Oh, dang, I forgot. I don't think you've met all the kids yet.” Heath said, as his brothers drove away.

Rhyno had always just assumed that Heath had two, maybe three kids. And he hadn’t realized it when he had seen them at the demolition derby - he had thought maybe a couple of the kids belonged Heath's friend. But as Heath went through them one by one and Rhyno looked at all of the kids next to each other again the familial resemblance was undeniable. 

“That’s Boomer pouting by the lawn flamingos. Cheyenne is on Dean’s shoulders, Jolene and Gunner are the ones throwing leaves at each other, and Jayla and Ricky are playing with their dinosaurs over there.”

“Seven?”

“Counting Waylon, yep!” Heath grinned. “Speaking of, I bet he's hungry. You want to come in? Didn't mean to make you stand outside so long.”

“No problem.” Rhyno handed Waylon back to Heath “I, uh. I brought a present. I'll just grab it and I'll be right in.”

Rhyno was bent over, retrieving the gift bag from the passenger side footwell, when he saw someone come up beside him in his peripheral vision. When he straightened up, bag in hand, Heath's friend Dean was towering over him. The little girl was still riding on his shoulders, and she looked down at Rhyno, clearly curious about what was in the gift bag as she said

“Hi!”

“Hello.” Rhyno replied, feeling awkward as he shut the door. “How are you?”

“Good! Dean’s giving me piggybacks!”

“That seems, uh. Fun.”

Cheyenne giggled. Dean smiled too, but Rhyno wasn't entirely sure why Dean was grinning at him like that. Rhyno tried to head toward the trailer but Dean stepped in front of him, blocking Rhyno as smooth as anything as he swung Cheyenne down off of his shoulders.

She looked betrayed the moment that her little sneakers touched the gravel, but Dean just shrugged and said “Sorry, kiddo. Me and Mr. Rhyno gotta talk about adult stuff.”

“Like what?”

“Taxes.” Dean said, voice serious. That seemed to be a good enough answer, because Cheyenne turned and skipped away and Dean swirched his attention back to Rhyno without missing a beat. “Nice car, man.”

“Um. Thanks?”

“Yeah, so. Whatever. You got a brother, right? Terry. Works at the Arby's with you?”

“Uh -”

“That guy's a fucking asshole, man. Why can't I walk through the drive through at night? And who gives a fuck if I have shoes on or not if I'm outside?”

Crap. Rhyno remembered that a couple of years ago he had almost had to call the cops on a drunk and disorderly patron. It wasn't a super clear memory, but what Dean was telling him seemed to line up with the details that Rhyno was able to recall.

“It's a safety policy.” Rhyno said, automatic

“It's bullshit, is what it is.” Dean countered. “Does he still work there?”

“Who?”

“Your brother. Terry.”

“Uh, yeah. Terry.” Rhyno wasn't sure why he had said that, but now it was out and he had no option except to run with it. “I'll talk to him the next time I see him, okay?”

“You do that.” Dean crossed his arms over his chest, but he seemed satisfied enough to let Rhyno step around him and make his way back up the steps to Heath's trailer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have never laughed so hard at my own jokes as i did repeatedly writing the words 'Big Hot Ham'. I am a monster.


	22. Love of the Common People

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (Heath & Rhyno, Heath's kids - birthday party, part 2/2)

Waylon was sitting in some sort of pop-up playpen, drinking from a bottle and staring at Rhyno solemnly when he pushed open the door and inched into Heath's trailer. Rhyno knew that he had been asked, invited, but he still felt like he was trespassing into someone else's life. 

Rhyno had noticed right away, before he was even all the way through the door, how homey and perfectly lived-in the place felt. There was a jumble of small shoes and jackets by the door, pictures of Heath's family everywhere, toys laid out in the main living area where the kids must have been playing last. It was the polar opposite of Rhyno’s house, which felt like a bunch of rooms where he ate and slept and still had almost nothing on the walls even though he had lived there for years. 

It looked like there might have been a lot of people crammed into the small space earlier, but now there was just Heath in the kitchen off to the left, stuffing shreds of wrapping paper and ribbons into a black garbage bag. When Rhyno finished waving at Waylon he saw that Heath was grinning at him, and Rhyno felt a moment of self-consciousness so overwhelming that he didn't know what to do. He stood frozen, just inside the doorway but lost at sea all the same.

But Heath didn't even seem to notice. He just bent over to retrieve a white plastic yogurt container out of something that Rhyno understood, logically, had to be a refrigerator. It was the size and shape of one, even though it was mostly obscured underneath the layers and layers of crayon drawings and elementary school report cards and magnets that covered the entire exterior of the appliance.

The yogurt container was set down on the counter between Rhyno and Heath, and then Heath was looking at him expectantly. Rhyno stepped and he saw the lid of the yogurt container had the word ‘CHILI’ written across it in black marker. What? Rhyno absolutely did not get it, and Heath must have finally picked up on Rhyno’s confusion because he said

“Said I'd save you a cupcake, didn’ I” Then Heath peeled off the lid and handed it back over, sounded proud of himself as he explained. “Had’ta hide it from the kids. Well, them and my brothers.”

When Rhyno looked down again he saw bright yellow frosting, the edge of the ruffled white paper wrapper. He extracted it gently from the yogurt container, took care not to get too much frosting on his hand as he pulled it out and set it on the counter. 

Rhyno hesitated for a second before he picked the cupcake up, peeled the wrapper down from the sides and then set it back again. The cake part was a shocking bright blue. It seemed too nice to eat - not necessarily the cupcake itself, but the entire gesture of it. But Rhyno was saved from having to make that decision when the front door banged open and the the two twin girls came rushing in.

“Hey!” Heath chided “What’d I say about slammin’ the door?”

“Sorry, dad.”

“Yeah, sorry dad.” 

They didn't sound very apologetic, but they scuffed their feet for a second before the excitement surged back.

“We saw another present!”

“Is it for us?”

“I don’t know.” Heath crossed his arms over his chest, talking slower than he normally did. “Are you gonna stop crashing into everything?”

“Yep!” “Nope!” 

The two spoke simultaneously as they started to pull the tissue paper out of the bag, and Heath sighed, shook his head, but Rhyno could tell he was trying not to smile.

Jayla - at least, Rhyno was pretty sure Jayla - looked down into the bag and gasped “Wow, it's so pretty!”

“I love it!” said Jolene. Then, “What is it?”

“It's, uh.” Rhyno had not, until that moment considered that a box set of ‘Cosmos’ might be a bad birthday present for six year old girls, much less how he was going to explain the concept to them. “It's a TV show.”

“Cool!”

“What do you say to Mr. Rhyno?” Heath prodded

“Thanks for the present!” “Thanks Mr. Rhyno!”

Before Rhyno could stop and process what was happening, the kids ran over and wrapped their arms around his legs in two tight hugs before they headed towards the door. Jolene disappeared outside, but Jayla stopped and turned around. She opened her mouth to say something, and Rhyno saw that she was missing one of her front teeth the second before her mouth clamped shut in surprise.

She stood up on her tiptoes to try and get a better look before she finally asked “Is that a cupcake?”

“Yes.” Rhyno answered, and it never crossed his mind to be anything less than honest. Then the girl darted towards him.

“Jayla, that's -” Heath, who must have known what was about to happen, tried to come around the counter to get between his daughter and Rhyno. But even in the tiny interior of the trailer, Heath wasn't quite quick enough.

Rhyno froze, stood perfectly still as the kid climbed up the side of his body. Jayla wasn't at all shy about it as she grabbed onto his pants and his shirt. She dug her toes in to get more leverage, caught Rhyno right in the diaphragm and knocked some of the air out of him. It happened too quick for Rhyno to do anything, not that he would have protested anyways, but -

When Jayla reached his shoulder she swung out to snatch the cupcake off of the counter and Rhyno saw, with startling clarity, a vision of her losing her grip and slipping and slamming her face into the edge of the formica. Rhyno’s stomach swooped and he reached out his other arm to stabilize Jayla just as she grabbed the cupcake and ate half of it in one huge bite.

“I'm gonna give the rest to my sister okay?” She said, muffled around a mouth of blue crumbs as she looked at Rhyno.

“Okay.” Rhyno nodded, wiped some of the frosting off of the side of her mouth

“You gotta put me down.”

“Oh.” Rhyno said, feeling foolish. “Yeah, alright.”

Jayla didn't look back as he set her down. She just sidestepped her dad and ran outside. Then, when Rhyno looked up from watching the door slam, Heath was staring at him.

Rhyno had never been stranger to the careful look that people gave him when he did something that they thought was odd. Those looks had been constant companions in his youth, and even though he'd gotten better at interacting with people as an adult Rhyno never quite got to forget what that particular expression looked like.

But this was somehow worse than when he spoke up at a Chamber of Commerce meeting and everyone just stared at him. Heath had invited Rhyno to his daughters’ birthday and into his home and now Rhyno had done something weird. But he didn't even know enough about families to know what he had messed up.

Maybe the kids weren't supposed to eat any more sugar, and Rhyno should have stopped her from getting at the cupcake. Or. He  _ had _ just wiped the icing off of Jayla’s face without even thinking about it. Was that inappropriate? Was it not okay to clean the face of someone else's child without being given explicit permission?

Rhyno reached for a napkin on the counter, wiped the frosting from Jayla’s face off of his fingers. He was. He was just going to make his apologies and leave before he made anything else awkward or strange, but before he could find the words Heath said

“Sorry ‘bout that.”

“What?” Rhyno asked, hand frozen in midair where he had been about to toss the napkin into the trash.

“Sorry.” Heath said again as he shook his head, looked like he was clearing cobwebs for a second or two. “That you didn' get your cupcake.”

“Oh, that's.” Rhyno said, smiling “That’s okay.”

And it really was.


	23. Hear the Planets

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (Stardust - meth lab)  
> Drug use, drug induced psychosis, paranoia, violence, hallucinations

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tried to do something different with this one and I can report that it is way harder to hit a specific target and do ten sections with exactly 100 words each than it is to just go wild and buckshot everything.

1.

He needed solitude to cook. He needed a place that was alone in the void and he found one, not three days after he had blown the airlocks on the last.

He had a starmap in his head. Drop points and chiral chemical configurations and empty, gutted houses where no one went except for him. Somewhere that had been abandoned and forgotten, rotting floorboards and a yard that was thick with years of dead and decaying leaves.

It was perfect. The deep, dark woods were close, so close, for when the time arrived that he would have to run again.

2.

Other people had lights in their eyes. Optical amplification like biologic lasers, stimulated emission of electromagnetic radiation.

They looked at him and the lasers were so fucking powerful that they ripped through his head and melted his brain when they shone at him like that, and he had to get away before they dissected every atom of his being and scanned his thoughts. 

If he was alone then everything was fine. But they were looking for him, always looking. Always they hunted him down the back roads and through the forests and into the dark heart of every dying star.

3.

All of the planets were aligned. He could see them when he looked outside in the dead of night and they hung above him in the sky like the blade of a guillotine. 

But it was not just the planets in this quaint and limited solar system, no. The perfect parallel lines of of worlds stretched so far beyond that, an infinite array of celestial bodies that were so far flung that no deep space probe had ever passed them, no human being had named them or even comprehended of their existence. Except for him. All of them, so bright.

4.

He'd been pushing the shopping cart back and forth across the far edge of the parking lot, back and forth and back in the dark like a satellite, scanning. He couldn't remember why he'd come into town. He had needed something, something that he could not wait for someone to bring to him, something important, but that knowledge had been gutted out of him.

He twitched, cracked his neck, looked up at the streetlights and then back down and there were someone else's hands on the pushbar of the cart. Fingernails ripped off and chewed down to their bloody quicks.

5.

When that white hot fission hit him it lit him up from the inside out. It sparked like a deep space signal that had been shot out of some distant nebula and directly into his bloodstream, down the spinning space elevator of his spine. He tuned into the pulsating neutron stars and everything was blasted open and bright.

But it always ended. His body was a corrupt and rotting thing, run through with worms and parasites and nanomolecular metallic listening devices.

No matter how hard he tried he could never get all of them out. But oh, he could try.

6.

He had another nosebleed. He could feel it, hot and salty as it drained down the back of his throat, as it dripped down across his cracked upper lip and into his mouth.

He knew why he had the nosebleed, and he knew he was standing outside of the gas station because he had needed more propane, but he didn't know that someone was coming up behind him until he felt a hand on his shoulder.

“Cody?”

He spun around, snarling.

The man stepped back. His hands were up, palms out, his car keys hooked around one finger. Calming. Threatening.

7.

Where had he been, before this place? Who was he, before who he was now?

Nowhere. Nothing. Everything, everything, everything.

Because matter could not be created or destroyed and when he cooked he wasn't actually creating anything at all. All that he did was transmute lead into gold or precipitate ten trillion tiny big bangs in in the bottom of a beaker. Because everything was matter, but in the end nothing mattered at all.

Everything that he touched turned to slag, everything that he comprehended was lost to him and he was alone always and he wanted it that way. 

8.

“Cody?”

He knew the man. Or, he  _ had _ known the man before the supernova in his head had it's way with him. He remembered those dark and searching eyes. He didn't remember being so much smaller, all sharp angles and paper-thin skin that caught and ripped and tore at every touch.

The man said his name, again, reached towards him, hesitant. As if the man thought he wouldn't see the movement if it were slow enough. As if his vision was based on motion.

Not so smart, after all. He wasn't a carnivorous dinosaur. But he could bite like one.

9.

The night was calm, silent except for the low hum of the generator on the porch and his own ragged breaths. He pulled his gas mask off, let it dangle from numb fingertips as he took deep breaths of the cool, clean air.

The tall grass was wet with condensation. Water. Not acid, like he had suspected. It folded like matchbooks under his bare feet.

He couldn’t see the stars due to the low, puffy clouds that had covered the sky. He picked at his face, agitated and disturbed, until the hot sun rose and forced him to retreat inside.

10.

He hadn't slept for three days because he knew that they were coming for him again. He'd walked through the woods and he'd watched the ugly yellow sky, listened past the screaming in his head.

Then he had heard them in the night, the quick quiet cuts of alien drones and black helicopters swarming towards him. There wouldn't be time to run. They would skewer him through with their high frequency laser beams and he would burn to dust if he could not evade them. All of a sudden, the woods seemed very far away.

  
The matches were much closer.


	24. Common Ground

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (Big Cass, ensemble - emergency room)  
> Various people have various injuries, check endnotes for more details. 
> 
> I'm not a medical professional and I didn't do much research, so tbh this is almost all some best guess bullshit on my part.

Dr. Colin Cassaday had chosen to specialize in emergency medicine fairly early in his medical training, and now that he was in his residency he knew for sure that he had made the right choice. He'd been immediately drawn to the fact that there was little monotony in it, that in any one day he could deal with a wide variety of people and issues, from the high acuity trauma patients to the more routine cases like the one that Cass was currently dealing with.

His patient (Slater, Cheyenne - female - 6yo - facial laceration) looked like she might have been crying before, but as Cass checked the cut beside her eyebrow she was in no way agitated. In fact, she seemed to be having a pretty good time with the stickers thathat she was playing with, sticking them all over herself.

Now it was her dad that seemed closer to tears.

Cass had dealt with all types of parents during his time working in the E.R. - parents who screamed at him as soon as he walked in, parents who seemed unconcerned and more inconvenienced than worried by their children's injuries, parents who were so hysterical that he couldn’t even talk to them. Having to take a kid to the E.R. never brought out the best in people.

Nurse Naomi in her superbright scrubs had warned Cass before he went in the room that Mr. Slater seemed a bit _overwhelmed_. Which meant that the father was stressed but not combative, worried but willing to let the staff to their jobs.

When Cass was done with his initial examination he stood up from where he had been crouched down by the patient, and Mr. Slater was at attention right away, wringing his hands together.

“Can you tell me what happened again?”

“Her sister hit her in the face with a plastic dinosaur.” He said, looking worried and embarrassed as he added “I think it was a stegosaurus. That one's got spikes on the tail.”

Cass nodded, made a note of dinosaur type in the patient chart even though it wasn't really relevant to the treatment plan.

“Alright, Mr. Slater. Your daughter is going to need some stitches, but the cut should heal up nice and neat. Now I don't want to worry you, so I need to warn you in advance that -”

“She's not gonna go blind in that eye, is she Doctor?” Mr. Slater had gone very still, his face almost white as his daughter kept peeling stickers, unconcerned “I mean, my grandma lost an eye when she was a girl cause a staple went glancin’ off a fencepost, so I know she'd be alright in life, I just -”

Cass shook his head, held up a hand to cut off the worried torrent of words before it got even more carried away.

“Your daughter's vision won't be affected. But she is probably going to develop a bruise on that eye.”

Mr. Slater was quiet for a second, then “I didn't even know eyeballs could bruise.”

Cass nodded “It may look disconcerting. The white of her eye will turn a yellow-green color for a while, but it'll go away like any other bruise.”

“Dad!” The patient chimed in, excited “Did you hear that? I'm gonna be like a alien!”

\---

Cass had recognized the guy as soon as Cass entered the room, but it took him a second to place the face. The emergency room had a number of ‘frequent fliers’, but this guy wasn't one of them. Instead, Cass remembered him as someone who was very intense about PowerPoint presentations

“Hello, I'm Doctor Cassady.” Cass introduced himself as he pulled up the patient chart (Sandow, Damien - male - 27yo - bite wound with skin punctures). “And you work here, don't you Mr. Sandow? For the hospital, I mean.”

He seemed to be alert, sitting up in the bed and holding his hand over the absorbent pad on his right wrist even though, as Cass could see, the nurse had already taped it to hold it in place over the wound.

“Yes. I'm in administration.” Sandow said, with a curt nod towards Cass.

“It says here that you were bitten. Is that correct?”

“Yes.” Sandow raised his chin, looked a little defiant even though he didn't add any additional details.

Cass thought for a second that the man might be trying to avoid having to get the rabies vaccine series, which. If he worked in a health care, even just admin, he really should have known better. Cass pulled the rolling stool over and sat beside the bed, started to gently remove the wound dressing.

“Are you able to identify the type of animal that bit -” Cass started, but then he got a good look at the bite mark and switched tracks. This really should have been noted specifically in the chart. “I'm mean, the person that bit you.”

“Yes. I knew him.” The defiant jut of Mr. Sandow’s chin was back, but he seemed a little greener around the gills when he looked down and saw the livid teeth marks.

“Do you remember when you had your last tetanus shot? The nurses already cleaned your wound, but infection in these types of injuries don't usually become apparent until some time has passed. We're going to start you in a course of antibiotics, and you are going to need to follow up with your primary care provider.”

Sandow nodded, looking grim.

Even in his short time in medicine, Cass had already seen plenty of ‘love bites’ that had occurred due to over enthusiastic sex. But those were usually presented on the chest or buttocks in male patients. Judging from the placement and the severity of this bite, however, Cass suspected that his patient wasn't being tight lipped due to any modesty concerns.

“Have you filed a police report?” Cass asked

“No. I see no reason to involve law enforcement in this.” Mr. Sandow said, but then he faltered for the first time when he offered by way of explanation. “He's. Sick.”

That got Cass’ attention real quick.

“Sick how? Human bites are always at an increased risk of infection. Do you know if the man who bit you -”

“Not ill.” Mr. Sandow cut him off, the  clarified “Drugs.”

“Okay.” Cass said, didn't push even though he was definitely going to send the hospital social worker to talk to Mr. Sandow before he was discharged.

\---

Cass had been half way through a busy overnight shift, using a few free seconds to try and feed his crumpled dollar bill into the finicky snack machine in the employee lounge, when the page came through.

He went straight down to the ambulance bay with the rest of the team, got caught up on what the EMTs knew over the radio while they waited for the bus to arrive.

There had been an anonymous 911 tip that someone had been hurt at a house on the edge of town, known to law enforcement as a place of drug related activity. When the first responders had arrived they had found one person. Injured, not overdosing like they had expected: John Doe - male - mid to late twenties - severe head injury. Alive, breathing, but unresponsive to stimuli.

Cass was right there, ready to go when they unloaded the stretcher from the back of the ambulance and transferred the patient over to the gurney on the backboard. The patient was a big guy. Everyone had to lift with their knees, and Cass recognized... Well, Cass didn't recognize the man himself. But Cass had treated someone with near identical tattoos before - three bold crosses on the back of each hand, lots of Scripture and religious iconography that was on the man's arms as his clothes were cut away.

One of the main reasons that Cass remembered the other case because the patient had been even bigger than Cass himself, but also -

(Male, presented with a minor fever and a white blood cell count low enough for Cass to run blood cultures, put him on neutropenic protocols and transfer him off to a private room on the med/surg floor. The patient had also been experiencing extreme esophagitis caused by radiation therapy. The other reason that Cass remembered that patient in detail was the way that the huge man had screamed when he tried to drink the CT contrast.)

\- but that wasn't important at the moment. This was not the same guy, so that medical history was not relevant. There would be time for the cops to run the fingerprints and get an ID later.

Right now, Cass needed to make sure that this patient was stabilized as possible as they moved him to the ICU. If the injury was serious enough to require surgery (which Cass highly suspected, given that the man had been hit hard enough in the back of the head to reveal the white bone of the skull) then they would need to arrange for helicopter transport since Cass’ small town hospital had limited resources. Right now, he needed to check pupillary response, blood pressure, pulse and oxygen level, and all the other important things that were scrolling through his mind as the adrenaline of a dealing with a serious trauma case dropped into his bloodstream, and at that moment Cass was in the zone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> > facial laceration with very minor eye trauma, bite wound caused by another person, serious head trauma


	25. Step Right Up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (Sami/Finn, Dean - county fair)

Sami remembered, when he was a kid, that the fair that had always come to town the week before the 4th of July was one of the highlights of the summer. He remembered spending entire days running around the dusty fairground, ducking his head as he walked by the game barkers and flashing his wristband to ride the Ferris wheel again and again.

As an adult, well. It was still pretty neat! He and Finn had stuffed themselves on fair food as they walked around - funnel cake and fried oreos and ears of corn, dripping with butter - and all the lights were fun to look at, but they had walked around the entire fair three or four times already. 

It was much, much smaller than Sami had remembered. But the fair was in the exact same gravel lot behind the high school football stadium that it always had been, a space that had always seemed so big to Sami but was now almost claustrophobic. All the rides were in the same places that they had been when he was a kid and, as a matter of fact, Sami was almost one hundred percent sure that was the exact same Tilt-A-Whirl that he had puked on in the third grade.

Finn seemed to be having a good enough time, though. He had won a tiny, lopsided giraffe at one of the fishing games where winning something was guaranteed, had said that he'd go on whatever rides Sami wanted to go on. Even the Tilt-A-Whirl. But even though Sami was doing his best to have fun, well.

Sami was starting to, maybe, feel a little self-conscious that he had suggested this to Finn as the Awesome Thing To Do on a Saturday night when he'd said that he wanted to come visit Sami.

June was always hot, even after dark with only the full moon and the bright carnival lights shining. Sami didn't recognize everyone, but he was seeing plenty of familiar or half-remembered faces in the crowd. He hadn’t been wrong, exactly - this really was the most exciting thing going on in town. 

“Wow. That guy must know all the secrets.”

Sami followed Finn’s pointing finger and saw Dean. He was standing in the shadows off to the side of the end of the row of carnival games, slouched up against the side of it as he smoked. Sitting besides Dean’s feet on the gravel there was a fluorescent green stuffed alien toy. Sami had seen them in all sizes as he walked around, hanging from some of the game stalls, but the one next to Dean had to be one of the largest. 

“Oh yeah, that's my friend.” Sami ate the last bite of corn. “Dean? I told you about him before.”

“Want to go say hello?” Finn offered, and he actually looked excited about meeting one of Sami’s friends “Maybe he can tell me how to win a bigger giraffe.”

Sami didn't know how to say, in any way that wouldn’t sound insulting, that a lot of people thought of Dean as an acquired taste. So instead he just said “Sure.”

Dean noticed them coming before Sami could call out to him, and Sami saw the exact moment that it happened. The look of recognition on Dean’s face when he picked Sami out of the crowd, and then a flash of confusion followed by pure, unadulterated glee when Dean saw who Sami was standing next to.  Then Dean waved, one-handed and lazy, and he grinned around the red glow of his cigarette as they walked over to him. Sami could already feel his face flushing, and Dean hadn’t even said anything yet.

“Heya, Sami.” Dean stood up a little straighter once they were close enough to talk. “And this must be the guy I've heard so much about.”

“Finn.” Finn offered his hand and Dean shook it like an actual civilized human being and maybe Sami was worrying too much about this. “Nice to meet you.”

“Same.” Dean nodded, then his gaze stuttered away got distracted by some bright lights for a second before he drug his attention back to Finn and Sami. “So. Enjoyin’ the fair?”

They chatted for awhile, and Dean explained that he had won the alien not due to any secret knowledge, but because he just had really great aim and something he called ‘carny intuition’. Which sounded like secret knowledge to Sami, but what did he know?

The top of the giant alien's head came up above Dean’s hip, and Sami saw that Dean was using it as a makeshift table, a place to set his pack of cigarettes and a bottle of cherry coke. Dean was wearing a pair of ragged jeans and a black tank top, and he had that lazy loose limbed look about him that meant there was zero chance that there was only soda in that bottle. 

“Nice ink, by the way.” Dean offered during a lull in the conversation when a pack of giggling teenagers wandered by with cotton candy. 

Finn got a happy look on his face, rolled up the arms on his t-shirt so that Dean could see the top parts of the tattoo sleeves that reached from Finn’s elbows up to his shoulders. Dean, however, wasn't actually paying much attention to Finn. Instead he looked right at Sami and waggled his eyebrows suggestively as Finn revealed his biceps. Sami knew that Dean was just messing with him, but he still couldn’t stop the blush from heating the back of his neck.

“I like yours, too.” Finn offered, eventually.

Sami knew then that Finn was just trying to be polite to Dean. Because Finn had a lot of opinions on technical skill and artistry when it came to tattooing, and. Well.

Dean had a bunch of wobbly, washed out black tattoos on his arms that Sami had never asked about. The biggest was a lopsided Anarchy symbol that started about two inches below Dean’s elbow and wrapped around his forearm at a weird angle. Like the person who had done it had started without really planning how much space it was going to take.

“Uh, thanks.” Dean said. He seemed caught off guard by the complement, looked down at his arms like he wasn't sure what Finn was talking about. “I got ‘em in the pen.”

“Really?” Finn asked as he looked back and forth between Sami and Dean, and. Sami maybe hadn’t mentioned that his friend from middle school that he'd reconnected with was now also an ex-con.

“Yeah.” Dean shrugged, took a long drink out of his soda bottle. The alien rolled it's bulbous head to the side a bit, like it was trying to hide it's face. Or maybe Sami was just projecting. “It's against the rules to tattoo in the slammer, some health and safety shit. But, ya know. No one gives a fuck.”

  
To be fair, Sami had not known that at all.


	26. All We Know

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (Ensemble - M - bonfire)  
> Drinking, minor violence, implied drug use
> 
> I haven't gone to any lengths to firmly establish ages but a few characters here are under 21, so. Underage drinking

Dean kept his arms up to protect his face, shifted his feet against the gravel to anchor himself. Ziggler was a scrappy guy. He would have done better to go for Dean’s middle, his stomach or ribs, but he always swung for the head at first. So Dean waited until Ziggler had just landed another blow on his forearm then he stepped forward, under and in between, and cracked Ziggler on the jaw.

Dean heard the sharp clack of teeth clicking together as Ziggler’s head rocked back and he grinned. It only lasted for a second, though, because that slippery son of a bitch Ziggler twisted around and spun a leg up to kicked Dean in the face. Every fucking time. The skin of his lip split and Dean got blood in his mouth, moved back a step and spit a stream of it onto the ground. Ziggler had a look on his face like he was so damn proud of himself and oh, yeah, Dean was going to wipe that smirk right off of his stupid face.

Except, when Dean went to lunge at him again, someone grabbed him by the hood of his sweatshirt and Dean clotheslined himself on the neck hole with his own momentum. 

No one had been paying Dolph and Dean very much attention as they had fought. But now, in the wild orange light of the bonfire, Dean could see the loose knots of people standing around the coolers had started to perk up and start watching.

“What the fuck is it with you two?” Big E Langston asked as he drug Dean back another foot and stepped between him and Ziggler, crossed his arms over his chest.

“C’mon, it's just for fun.” Dean griped, rubbed at the back of his neck.

“Yeah.” Dolph adied “We're just messing around, don't worry!”

Dean watched as Dolph nodded along in honest agreement. Big E stared at Dolph for a second, face inscrutable, then shot Dean a look that made it clear Big E saw right through him. 

Big E’s glare had Dean fighting not to shuffle his feet because, yeah. Dean knew that Ziggler was sparring with him to try and look cool, but Dean had suggested it to Ziggler in the first place because he had known that Ziggler would agree and that Dean would get to hit someone that he didn't particularly care for.

“Here's an idea.” Big E said “If you're that damn bored at my party, you can go somewhere else.”

“Don't worry, man.” Dean stepped around Big E, slung a companionable arm around Ziggler’s shoulders. “We're cool.”

Big E gave them another look, as if he wanted to make extra sure that they knew he wasn't about to abide by their nonsense, but he left them alone again.

Dean dropped his arm as soon as Big E turned his back, but he should have known Ziggler wouldn't take the hint.

“You wanna go smoke up or something?” Ziggler asked as he massaged his jaw where Dean had hit him

“Thanks.” Dean grinned back, knew that his teeth would be shining in the light of the bonfire and red with his own blood. “But no thanks. Maybe next time.”

\---

Blake had left for no more than a minute to find some water, but when he returned Xavier Woods had the sleeve of his jacket pulled up, showing off the tattoo on his forearm to Alexa.

“It's the Triforce.” Woods explained, but got nothing other than a blank look. “From the Legend of Zelda.”

“The legend of what?” Alexa’s eyebrows furrowed together.

“Oh, man, you haven't heard of it? Ocarina of Time is, like, one my favorite video games of all time! Ha. Time? Anyways, it's probably one of the greatest games ever made -”

“Fuck.” Alexa finished her drink, chucked to bottle into the fire. “You coulda just told me it was some nerd shit. Got. It.”

Woods seemed like he couldn't figure out if he should be offended or if he should try to keep preaching the video game gospel to try and convert Alexa. Which just wasn't going to happen - Blake knew that her interest in that type of thing began and ended with murdering everyone at Mario Kart.

Murphy was stuck working third shift at the plant, so Blake was the only one in the wings to DD and make sure that Alexa didn't try to get in any fights that weren't worth it. Especially with someone like Xavier Woods, who Blake was pretty sure she could destroy verbally without even needing to get physical. Blake knew his cue when he saw it, stepped up beside Alexa and tapped her on the elbow with the bottle of water. 

“What?” Alexa snapped, startled for a second before her vision focused and she saw that it was only him. “Oh. Thanks Blake.”

She took the water and drained about half of it in one go, turned her back on Xavier and started to wander in the general direction of Blake's car. “You ready to go?”

“Sure.” Blake had to jog for a second to catch up with her.

By the time Blake slid in behind the wheel, Alexa had already leaned the passenger seat back so that it was almost horizontal, put a hand over her eyes.

“You okay? Got the spins?”

“No spins. I'm fine.” Alexa rubbed at her forehead, and her eyes were still closed when she said “I just wish Nia could've come down.”

Blake paused for a second with his hand hovering near the steering column. The keys dangled useless from his fingers, but Blake was too shocked to get them into the ignition. Holy shit. He hadn’t thought that Alexa’d had that much to drink, that she would willingly talk about missing her not-girlfriend.

“Nia is pretty cool.” Blake hedged as he finally started the car.

He waved one-handed as he drove out past where Jordan and Gable were talking to that kid Ziggler always hung out with. Gable returned the wave, but Jordan just stared Blake down as he drove by. Typical.

  
“Nia is  _ great _ .” Alexa said eventually, very vehement for someone who didn't want to sit up straight. “Her hair smells like grapefruit.”


	27. Give It Away

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (Baron Corbin - 'adult novelty shop')  
> implied drug use/dealing, references to motorcycle accident, Ric Flair

By all accounts  Richard Flair was a pretty successful small town businessman. He owned both of the coin-op laundromats in town and the building that the chinese buffet operated in, but the store where Baron worked was Ric’s pride and joy. It seemed like once every week Ric would swirl through and overwhelm Baron with requests to rearrange something or put together a new display. So when Ric asked Baron to come into his office, Baron just figured that he was going to get chewed out for not properly shelving the new shipment of DVDs or something.

The reality was much worse.

“Now I know you've been down in the dumps ever since your wreck.” Ric said as he sat down behind his desk as he gestured at the present he had offered Baron. “Thought this might help cheer you up.”

Everyone in town knew what the store was, the squat brick building with the blacked out windows, even though the a big sign on the curb only said ‘OPEN NOW’. The actual name of the store was only displayed on a small, hand painted sign on the front door: Slick Ric's Sex Pit.

Baron knew that Ric had fought a losing battle with the city council for almost a decade to be able display a large sign with any derivative of his shop’s actual name. Baron could vaguely remember that the sign Ric was trying to give him had been in the front window for a hot second a couple of years ago, before some parents had complained about public decency.

“You could hang it up at your pad.” said Ric “For impressing the ladies. Woooo!”

Baron looked down at the sign, which said ‘ _The Sex Pit_ ’ in glowing red cursive. Then he looked back up at Ric. He knew that he had kept his face perfectly neutral, that he had done nothing to give away his internal horror. Baron had a lot of practice at that, thanks to his job. There was no way that his expression had been anything other than a blank slate, but Ric had grinned at Baron and said

“Hah! Knew you'd love it!” Ric got up, came back around the desk and clapped Baron on the shoulder. “Anyways, while I'm here I was thinking we could talk about a better way to arrange those new MILF Hunter videos…”

Baron had known, before he started working at The Pit, that he did not actually have a particularly adventurous sexual history. In fact, he had applied the job mostly because he had thought that it would be a good way to meet chicks. It was just going to be a sexier version of a regular retail job, right? He could just bullshit his way through it.

His first week on the job, one of the teachers Baron remembered from middle school had come in and asked him if some new series of leather wrist restraints was better than a specific previous model. Baron had just said yes to escape the conversation. A week later his old teacher had returned and educated him in all the ways that he had been wrong.

After years now of working at The Pit, Baron had grudgingly assembled a detailed second-hand knowledge of every product that they sold, as well as an improved scowl that he had hoped (in vain) would stop people from asking him about any of them. He still wasn't any better at talking to people.

Baron had gotten his sociology degree online in between stocking lube, but now when he thought back about it he couldn't even remember what he had thought he would do with it. Maybe the only reason that he had bothered with college in the first place was so that he could say he was still going to school.

Not that anyone ever asked. But it had made him feel better, calmed the panicked clawing in his chest a little when he stopped to think about where he was at. That he wasn’t just selling dildos and smoking weed all the time, wasting his life.

Baron had applied to a handful of jobs in the city since getting his degree, hadn't heard anything back, gotten pissed and given up. He'd been starting to think that maybe he would just get on his bike and go one day. Baron had some money saved up, there was nothing holding him down. If he was going to be working a crap dead end job forever then at least, maybe, he could work a crap dead end job somewhere better than the same place that he had lived his entire life.

In the spring Baron told himself that he would pack up and go once summer rolled around - fewer thunderstorms, drier roads. Then in the summer he decided that it would be best to just wait until fall when it wasn't so miserably hot all of the time. Then fall started to edge into winter and Baron had wrapped a deer around the front of his motorcycle and then he wasn't going anywhere at all after his savings disappeared into hospital bills and fixing the bike.

Getting that lewd and ludicrous sign from Ric was not, in fact, going to make anything better. Not at all.

At first Baron thought that he could just take the sign to shut Ric up, throw it in the dump and be rid of it. Then he realized that word would definitely get back to Ric if he did that. The gossip grapevine in town was terrifyingly fast, and Ric would get his feelings hurt and Baron would probably get fired. But Baron also didn't want it in his house and he didn’t know how to turn down a gift, much less a gift that was from his _boss_.

So he just pretended to forget about the sign. Then, a week later when Ric asked him why he hadn’t taken it yet, Baron had muttered something about not being able to carry it on his bike and hurried away to assist a customer. Ric had dropped the sign off at Baron’s place the next day, left it on his front step in plain sight. There had been a yellow post-it note stuck to the side of it, decorated with a winking smiley face.

As soon as his heart had started beating again Baron had hauled the sign inside and shoved it in the back of his hall closet. It stayed there in the dark, leaning up against the wall and tormenting Baron whenever he hung up his jacket, reminding him that his closet was now officially The Sex Pit.

About a month later, the afternoon sun glared off of the snow and made the world burn a sharp orange and yellow. Baron had to squint his eyes against it after he had heard the knocking and gone to open the door. It had been long enough since the accident that Baron hadn’t had to worry about screens or bright lights for a while, but he still resented Dolph for showing up and making Baron open his door when it was so bright outside. Fuck, Baron was way too used to working nights.

“Hey, Baron!” Dolph said, blowing into his hands to warm them as he shifted his weight back and forth on Baron’s doorstep. “Can I come in?”

Baron didn't know for sure if he actually liked Dolph or enjoyed his company, but Baron was still pretty sure that they were friends. After all, Baron had been buying weed from Dolph for years.

They had hated each other's guts back in highschool, but now that they were adults they hung out every once in awhile when Dolph showed up at his house. Dolph thought that Baron’s bike was cool, gave him a pretty deep discount on the weed, and Baron mostly ignored the sinking feeling in his guts that surfaced whenever Dolph asked if he was free to chill. That was what friendship was like, right?

Anyways, Baron always let him in.

Dolph trudged after Baron, down the hall and into the kitchen, probably leaving a trail of melting snow behind him because Dolph never remembered to take his goddamn boots off. Baron opened his fridge and was about to ask Dolph if he wanted anything to drink, when he noticed that Dolph wasn't right besides him like usual.

Instead, Dolph was standing frozen in the hallway. Staring into Baron’s closet. It was a good thing that Baron had killed his natural inclination to blush when he was embarrassed a very, very long time ago.

“That is the coolest thing I've ever seen!” Dolph said, sounding amazed.

Baron blinked. Maybe Dolph had somehow missed the sign. Maybe he was looking at something else. “What?”

“That sex pit sign. Holy shit! You are like the coolest guy ever.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Then Baron sells the sign to Dolph and Dolph hangs it proudly in the bedroom of the basement unit that he lives in and shows it off to everyone.
> 
>  
> 
> [](http://i.imgur.com/bPKOoMc.png)  
> 


	28. Always Gold

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (Dean Ambrose, Sami Zayn - drive-in movies)

“Yo. Sami. Where the fuck’re you going?” Dean said mildly from the passenger seat, where he had been tapping his fingers on his knees restlessly ever since Sami had picked him up. 

Sami stopped looking at the taillights of the car that was inching forward in from of him and turned to stare at Dean, confused. “The drive-in? I thought we were going to the movies.”

“Yeah, we are.” Dean scoffed “But didn't you spend, fuckin’, I don't know. Three hours last week freakin’ out about how you're never gonna pay off your student loans?”

Sami didn't say anything, but he didn't deny it either.

“Alright, so. You don't need to be shellin’ out that cold hard cash taking my broke ass to the movies just because you don't want to see some sappy-ass romcom by yourself.”

“Umm.”

“What?”

“I thought you'd buy your own ticket.”

“Ha!” Dean laughed, slapped his hand on the center console “Good one, Sami.”

“Well, then. You want to do something else?”

“Nah, you said you wanted to hang out and go to the movies so that's what we're gonna do. Just -” Dean waved his hand vaguely out the passenger side window “Get outta this shitty traffic jam and go park behind the Kmart.”

Sami didn't know what he wanted to ask about more. The fact that Dean considered a line of maybe fifteen cars waiting to turn to be a traffic jam, or why in the world they were all of a sudden going to Kmart. Instead he didn't ask about either, just followed Dean’s directions until he was parked in the cracked asphalt of the empty lot.

Dean grabbed the frayed backpack that he'd brought with him out of the backseat and Sami checked, double checked to make sure that his doors were locked. Not that it would make a difference if someone wanted to get in bad enough to bust out one of Sami’s windows, but it didn't hurt to be safe.

The sun had set a while ago, but the sky was still streaked with grey and blue and there was enough light to see by as Sami followed Dean to the edge of the parking lot and a well worn trail that disappeared into the scraggly little forest there that was more brush than actual trees. If Sami walked through that grass he was almost certainly going to get covered in ticks.

“Dean? Where are we going?” Sami hesitated on the edge of the asphalt. 

“The movies, Sami. Don't you -” Dean stopped in the knee high weeds, turned around to stare at Sami. “Oh. I bet you never came here as a kid, huh?”

“Where? Kmart?”

“No, man. Free movies. Just trust me okay?”

“I can just. Pay for the tickets, Dean, it's not that big of a deal.” Sami offered, but Dean shot him down with a shake of the head.

“It's more fun like this anyways. Sami. Come on.”

“What about ticks?”

“What about ‘em?” Dean didn’t wait for an answer before he turned back around, started walking again as he called over his shoulder “We can do the tick check dance once we get there if you're so worried alright?”

Sami knew that Dean was just picking on him. But he had offered, after all, and it really would make Sami feel better.

Dean seemed like he could have navigated the trail in his sleep, but even if Sami had been by himself it wouldn't have been difficult to follow the packed down dirt. It was a longer walk than Sami might have guessed, but not very difficult.

The trail was clearly well frequented, and even in the low light it was easy to see where they were going, easy to see all of the litter that had gotten tangled up in the weeds along the side of the path.  Shiny foil chip bags snagged on twigs, a bunch of those tiny little plastic shot bottles that had been stepped on and flattened down into the ground. There was even an overgrown wheel-less Kmart shopping cart that had been overturned on it's side - the trail curved around it easily as they made their way up the side of the low hill.

It was almost completely dark once they had made their way up to the end of the trail. There was an area where the brush had been cleared away, the grass flattened down and yellow and dead. When Sami looked to the east he could see both screens of the drive-in movie theater. They were farther away that they would have been if they were actually parked in the lot, obviously, but still close enough that Sami didn't have any problem picking out the details from the previews that were starting to play on the left screen.

“Told ya so, didn't I?”

“How do we hear the words?” Sami asked. 

Sami felt foolish for a second - surely Dean had brought a little radio or something - but then Dean shook his head and said “Can't. Too far away to tune in. I think they've got some fuckin’, like, directional aiming shit going on with their radio waves.”

“I don’t -”

“You just gotta use the power of imagination, alright? It's way better like this.” Dean set his backpack down, dug around it it for a second before he tossed a can of soda to Sami. “I even brought snacks, so you dont get to whine. Now just hang tight for a sec.”

This was not how Sami would have ever chosen to see a movie, but he just sipped the soda and checked himself for ticks while Dean disappeared off behind some bushes. A few seconds later Dean came back dragging two plastic lawn chairs that had seen better days. Better years, maybe.

Sami wrinkled his nose when he looked at the chairs. Dean must have noticed because he drew himself up to full height and started back, face blank.

“Please don't tell me” Sami said, took time to pick his next words “That you bring dates out here.”

“What?”

“Why do you have  _ two _ chairs?” Sami asked “Two chairs, hidden in the bushes? Please. Please don't tell me that this is the Dean Ambrose third date special.”

Dean cracked up at that, pushed the slightly nicer of the chairs closer to Sami as he hiked his thumb back over his shoulder towards where he'd retrieved the chairs. “Nah, there's a whole mess of them back there. Dunno who they used to belong to, been here forever.”

Sami looked down at the chair, brushed off some dirt and a couple of leaves before he sat down. “Well, that's a relief.”

“Why?” Dean grinned as he sat in the chair next to Sami. “Your dude comes to visit, you bring him out here, you're gonna score for sure. I'm telling you, Sami. Cheapskate movie theater dates get everyone ready to fu- ouch!”

At least Dean had the good sense not to ask  _ why _ Sami had just smacked him on the back if the head.


	29. FM Waves Of The Heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (Alexa Bliss/Nia Jax , Blake, Murphy - changes)

Alexa finally reached the end of her admittedly short rope when they got to the first big chase scene in Fury Road and Alexa could still hear her neighbors arguing over the drums and the wailing flamethrower guitar. She threw the blanket off and extracted herself from where she was sandwiched in the middle of the couch. Nia and Blake and Murphy all turned to watch as she headed for the door with a scowl on her face.

“You want us to pause it?”

“Nah. This won't take long.”

Barefoot out in the hallway, Alexa hammered her fist on the door until the shouting on the other side of it finally cut out. It was silent for a couple of seconds but no one came to answer so she just kept knocking until the door was finally wrenched open and she nearly ended up slamming her fist against the chest of her neighbor.

She caught the momentum of her hand at the last second, which was a damn good thing since the guy wasn't wearing a shirt. Fucking typical. Alexa absolutely did not want to have to see his hairy chest at all, much less touch it. But on the ranking list of problems that Alexa had with her neighbors, Rusev opening his door shirtless wasn't the most important.

“Where’s your wife?” Alexa snapped, folding her arms over he chest as the corner of her lip curled up in a sneer.

Rusev didn't answer, just stared her down. He was at least a foot taller than her but Alexa didn't waver. She was used to this. Alexa could have repeated the entire conversation that was about to happen from memory, since it occured at least three times a week.

“I want to talk to your wife.” Alexa said, again.

“Lana not want talk to you.” Rusev finally said in his thick accent, sniffed a little bit. Alexa could see that his eyes were a little red around the edges, like he had maybe been crying or something.

“Tough shit.”

Rusev grunted and went to shut the door in her face, just like he did every time at this point in the exchange. So Alexa was ready to shoot her hand out and catch it, braced herself to press back and keep it from closing while Rusev glared at her.

“Lana!”

Then Rusev started to shout again in Bulgarian or Russian or whatever - some language that Alexa didn't understand but could still glean the meaning of well enough. ‘ _That bitchy little girl from next door is here to complain again about how we are being a couple of loud pieces of shit_.’ Well. Maybe that last part was just Alexa projecting.

A second later Lana appeared in the doorway. Whereas her husband looked like a shirtless mess almost every time Alexa showed up, Lana looked perfect and put together as always. If Alexa wouldn't have been at a permanent wits end with her neighbors she might have even admired Lana.

“Can you please. Keep it the fuck down. For once in your lives?”

“Tch.” Lana huffed as she flicked her platinum blonde hair over her shoulder. “Americans.”

When Lana swung the door Alexa let it shut, heard the deadbolt click and the chain lock slide. Another argument started almost immediately after, but at least they weren't full out yelling anymore.

Alexa was going to count that as a win.

Back in the apartment everyone had shifted around on the couch a little, Blake and Murphy smushed together at one end. Nia’s head was closer to Blake and Alexa could slip in at the other end of the couch and let Nia’s calves stretch across her lap and it was. Nice.

They had paused the movie for her after all, and in the split second after Alexa pressed play she heard Blake say

“Wow, Nia. Alexa was right.”

“About what?”

“Your hair really does smell like grapefruit.”

Nia just laughed, swatted Blake on the arm. Alexa knew that they watched the entire movie after that but even though she had seen it probably five hundred times before she still couldn't remember anything that happened.

It wasn't until much later, when they were laying in the dark on top of Alexa’s sheets, their feet tangled together at the ankles, that Alexa finally said

“Sorry. About my roommates, I mean.”

“Pfft. Don't worry.” Nia said, and Alexa felt more than she saw Nia shrug “They're chill.”

They were quiet for a while, then. Alexa watched the ceiling fan turning slow and lazy above them, turned up just enough to move the air around but not enough to actually cool it down any.

“I'm re-enrolling for next year.”

“What? Really?” Nia said, pushing herself up on her elbows, and. Alexa didn't want to think that Nia sounded excited, in case she ended up being wrong. But Alexa sorta thought that Nia maybe, maybe did.

They hadn’t talked about this. They hadn't tried to figure things out when Alexa had withdrawn after her second semester. She had told Nia, of course, once she had realized that she wasn't going to be able to make the whole college thing work out financially. That she was going to have to move home and work for a while to save up money since she couldn't get anything other than limited federal loans.

Nothing between them had ever been official in the first place so Alexa felt weird saying that they had left it open ended when there was no _‘it’_ to actually leave, but. Alexa had halfway expected to never hear from Nia again, but instead they had kept texting all the time and had Nia to come down to visit whenever she got the chance. They had just never talked about it.

But Nia was about to head off to her summer internship at a National Park, and Alexa had just. Wanted to give her a heads up. Had wanted to tell her in person.

“Yeah. I've got enough saved up for a couple more semesters, now.” Alexa said “ And I should be able to work enough part time up there.”

“That’s awesome! Have you told Blake and Murphy yet?”

“Nah. Not yet.”

Alexa still had a couple months to get her plans figured out, but if she wasn't careful she was going to drag her feet and stall like an asshole. She wasn't actually on the apartment lease, so that wasn't a problem, but Blake and Murphy were going to need to find another roommate or figure out if they wanted to pay more between them.

“They're going to miss you.”

“Please.” Aleza said, rolled her eyes even though it was dark she wasn't sure if Nia could see. “Blake and Murphy miss me when I go grocery shopping by myself and don't invite them. They're gonna be fucking _inconsolable_.”

Nia cracked up at that, hid her face in the pillow for a second to stifle her giggles, and Alexa found that she was smiling too.


	30. Turn The Key

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (Heath Slater - empty space)

Heath mentioned that he had been seventeen, with two kids already, when a couple of his cousins had shown up out of the blue one morning to ask if he wanted to make some extra money fixing grain bins. A farmer that had come into the feed store where Hank’s girlfriend (and eventual second baby mama) worked needed some help repairing the roofs after a storm had blown through. 

It had been a bright fall day, too early in the season for the weather to have cooled off any. Heath would've just started his senior year of high school of he wouldn't have dropped out. Cheyenne had just been a tiny baby, then - bald, scrunchy faced and beautiful. They always needed extra money, and Dale said that the farmer was going to pay them in cash. So Heath had jumped at the opportunuty.

The sun reflected blindingly off the shiny, corrugated metal of the grain bins and they had to hold up their hands to shield their eyes as they got their orders from the farmer. Heath had seen the guy in passing before, recognized him because the farmer was missing one of his hands and about half of his forearm, had an old hook prosthesis with straps that went across his chest.

Hank and Dale had built grain bins for a couple of summers, which was decent money and meant that they knew what they were talking about. Which was good, since Heath definitely did not. He just carried the tools and tried to do what he was told. When they broke for lunch, Dale popped open a hatch in the roof of the towering bin that they were working on, stepped down into it so that he could lay out on top of the grain. 

Heath hesitated.

He didn't know much of anything about farming. One of Heath's grandmas had grown up on a ranch, but otherwise he came from a family of plant workers and short order cooks and janitors. Not farmers. But he had still heard stories on the news about people who got trapped and killed when they went in grain bins.

Hank and Dale knew more than him, though, or at least they thought they did because they had built the bins before. Dale had just laughed at Heath when he asked about it, still hesitating to step through the roof hatch. 

“That’s only if it's runnin’. There's a, uh. Twisty thing at the bottom that'll empty out the grain, but if that ain't on then it's safe.”

So, Heath had stepped into the bin.

It was nice in there, smelled really good to Heath.  There was a little bit of light filtering down through the circulation vents in the ceiling, and Heath sneezed a couple of times when he looked up at them. It was hazy and warm, but not as hot as sitting out in the direct sunlight. The three of them ate their peanut butter sandwiches, watched the way that the light slanted through the drifting particles of dust. Then they got back to work.

The farmer was waiting for them when they trudged down the the metal staircase that curved around the side of the last bin at the end of the day. 

“You boys didn't take a lunch break?”

“Yeah we did.”

“Huh. Woulda figured you'd have come down and eaten in the shade.”

Dale had shrugged “Just went in the bin and sat on the top of the grain, got out of the sun well enough that way.”

The farmer stopped and stared at them. “Which bin was that?”

Heath pointed and the farmer blinked, looked shocked for a second before he said “What? That bin’s empty.”

“No it ain't.” Hank said “We were in that one for sure.”

The farmer's mouth set in a tight line and - Shit. Were they not going to get paid because they'd touched the grain or whatever? Was that bad? Heath honestly didn't know. But the look on the guy's face was grim as he trudged over and used his hook hand to haul oped a small door on the side of the bin.

Heath freaked out for a second, thinking that all the grain was going to come spilling out on the ground. But nothing happened. The doorway was just a dark, black void.

When Heath looked over at his cousins their faces had gone white.

“There must be a crust up top in there. You boys got damn lucky.” The farmer said as he shook his head, closed the door. Then he added, seemingly to himself as he forked the cash over to Heath and his cousins. “God loves little children and idiots.”

Ever since he was a kid, Heath had always had a lot of nightmares. As an adult he worst ones were about his kids disappearing - going to pick Boomer up from school and not being able to find him, being in the middle of changing a diaper and the baby inexplicably vanishing from underneath Heath's hands. Or the nightmares where someone or something would take his kids while Heath watched, powerless to help.

Heath could never remember having a nightmare where the crust of grain broke and he and his cousins plummeted to their deaths inside that bin. But he did have plenty of dreams where Heath would find himself inexplicably trapped in the space underneath the crust of grain. 

In those, Heath was always in that dark and cavernous space. Alone. The air was still and stale and there was no light at all when he looked side to side. But he could always look up and see the underside of that crust of grain that they had eaten their sandwiches on. Except. Heath's brain didn't really know what that would look like, so he always imagined it being like looking up at the surface of the water from the bottom of a pool.

Of course Heath also had plenty of dreams where he froze or drowned, but the ones about being in that empty grain void were the worst, second only to anything that had to do with something bad happening to his kids. But ever since Heath had started watching that Cosmos show that Mr. Rhyno had given to the girls as a present, those dreams about the void didn't bother him as much as they used to.

“I mean, I guess I always knew there were planets and stars and stuff in space, but I still thought it was empty. It's just that ever since we started watchin’ that show I realized that it's not really that empty out there after all.”

Mr. Rhyno looked at Heath like he didn't quite know what to say to that.

They had finished closing up the Arby's for the night. Heath had hung back in the mostly empty parking lot, leaning against the side of his van while he waited for Mr. Rhyno to finish locking all the doors. He had just wanted to let Mr. Rhyno know that he and all the kids loved the gift Mr. Rhyno had gotten the twins for their birthday (even if they didn't really have the attention spans to watch whole episodes at a time).

Heath realized, but not until after he had finally stopped talking, that he had maybe gotten a little carried away. He sure hadn’t meant to tell that whole story about the grain bins or run his mouth about all his weird nightmares. All that he had meant to do was explain how cool he thought all the stuff about the Big Bang was but, well. Heath had always talked too much when he got flustered.

Mr. Rhyno was a quiet guy, real smart and serious, always seemed to be thinking real hard about everything. But he never seemed to get annoyed when Heath talked his ear off.

“I'm glad.” Mr. Rhyno said, then looked immediately horrified. Which Heath didn't understand until he clarified “That you're all enjoying the show, I mean. Not that you almost died in a grain bin.” 

Heath couldn't help his startled laugh at that. It honestly hadn't even crossed his mind, and he told Mr. Rhyno as much.

Mr. Rhyno made a weird face, stuffed his hands in his jacket pockets as he said “I figured the new one would be good but I, uh. Wasn't sure.”

“The new one?” Heath asked, confused

“Yeah. I always watched the reruns of the old version of Cosmos when I was a kid. I just. Haven't had a chance to watch any of the new episodes yet.”

“Oh!” Heath said, and then “Well if you wanna, you can come by and watch them with us sometime.”


	31. Black Flies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (Dean Ambrose - bad trip)  
> Drug use, referenced physical child abuse, underage drinking, Cracker Barrel arson

Dean was laying flat on his back on his couch and he was pretty well fucked up. He was floating, buzzing, when the dim ceiling of his trailer lit up in a flashing reds and blues. 

He boosted himself up on his elbows to watch through the blinds as the cop car cruised by. The lights were blinking but siren was off, and it was gone as soon as it had arrived and the street was dark again.

When Dean had been really young, he had thought that having a bad trip meant seeing giant spiders on the walls or thinking that monsters were going to get you. He had been a child, with a child's understanding of fear. But those days were long, long gone and for whatever reason in that night it only took the one split second of watching a cop car drive by outside his window for Dean to go from pleasantly high and floating to crashing down. 

Breathe in, breathe out, and then -

Then Dean was eleven years old and he was going to Sami’s house. He had been running at first but then he had gotten worn out so that he was just trudging down the sidewalk, soaked by the sudden summer storm that had rolled in out of the west. It wasn't a short walk - Sami lived in a nice part of town and even if Dean took all the shortcuts and trespassed through the railyard it was still going to take him a while to get there. 

Also, it was  _ summer _ . So Sami wouldn't even be at his house. He was away at some kind of nerdy music camp that he had been gushing about for what seemed like months. Sami, like most kids, loved summer. Dean pretended to love it too, even though it mostly meant that get didn’t get to eat breakfast and lunch at school.

(None of this had that fuzzy around the edges, filter-like quality that Dean associated with dreams and memories. Dean thought that he could actually see the oil slick rainbows on the puddles and hear the crows complaining in the trees. He could feel again - as vivid and real as it had been on that actual day - the way that the thin material of his wet shirt had clung to his skinny shoulders. The raw pain that shot up his arm every time he stepped down too hard off of a curb.)

Dean had started to head towards Sami’s house before he even really thought about where he was going. He had just run out the door and in that direction on instinct. Dean figured that he could get one over on Sami’s mom if he kept his arm close to his chest and didn't show how hurt he was. She was cool, and Dean would show her that she wouldn't even need to call the cops or anything. Hopefully she would just give him a ride home and maybe a snack. 

Everything would be okay if he could just get to Sami’s house.

But Dean never got to find out if Sami’s mom would or would not have called the cops when her son's friend showed up at the door soaking wet with two black eyes and a broken arm (not that he would find out about the last part until later). Because Dean didn’t even get to Sami’s neighborhood, much less his house. He had ducked through the hole in the chain link fence around the railyard and the cop car flipped it's lights on and Dean ran as soon as he heard the first whoop of the siren but.

He didn't make it very far.

Then he was seventeen years old and it was the dead of winter. The firefighters had already extinguished the Cracker Barrel, so him and Seth didn't even have that to keep warm. It probably wouldn't have been hot enough to even reach them where they were sitting handcuffed on the curb across the parking lot, but Dean still resented how cold he was. Then again, Dean was so tanked that he could barely even sit up straight and he couldn’t for the life of him remember why he had thought this was a good idea or why he had done it in the first place but he knew that he had fucked up. Big time. He knew that this was it.

Dean struggled when the cop grabbed a big fistful of his hair as he shoved him down into the back of the cruiser. But before Dean got pushed in he met Seth's eyes over the tops of the two vehicles to where Seth was being pushed into a different car. And Dean was old enough then that he knew that everything was not going to be okay. But he had also thought that Seth would back him up when push came to shove because they've had talked about this. In the abstract. They had said that they were in it together, all the way. 

Dean, who had already had a record for shoplifting and underage drinking, had known that he never really stood a chance in the first place. Of course they were going to charge him as an adult. There was nothing he could say except to plead guilty, and to keep his fucking mouth shut it so that Seth wouldn't end up as bad off as Dean was going to. It wasn't even that big of a deal - Dean wasn't even going to do all his time, with how crowded the prisons were.

What Dean had not expected was that before the sentencing Seth would testify, in front of his lawyer and Dean’s public defender and the judge, that Dean had forced Seth to go along with the plan. That Vice President of the National Honor Society Seth Rollins, who had a full ride academic scholarship already locked down, had been scared to try and stop Dean. Because he had thought Dean would hurt him. 

Roman ended up being the only person to give Dean a positive character witness - and wasn't that a fucking twist of fate. 

Roman had written him letters for a while, had kept Dean up on the good gossip as everyone else moved on with their lives. Then Roman had enlisted after he found out that his girl was pregnant (news that he relayed to Dean with a bunch of excited exclamation points) and the last letter Dean got was right before Roman deployed. 

At least going to prison meant that Dean got his GED. What else was there for him to do? Other guys had families that visited them but Dean, well.

  
Then Dean was twenty-five and he was getting high on his couch, alone in his trailer, And Dean had known for a long time that everything was not going to be okay. But it was just going to have to be good enough to get by.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't believe I actually finished this. IT WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN POSSIBLE WITHOUT THE AMAZING RobinTrigue. 
> 
> I thought I was going to do this in order to burn up some of my weird free-floating ideas but instead I just gave myself more. What the fuck. I can't decide if I want to try and 
> 
> 1\. Save it up and do another 31 fic spree at some point in the future (but that wouldn't happen anytime soon, tbh) or   
> 2\. Let people timestamp for if they want to know something about the past/futures of specific characters/storylines, so I can bang out some quick not-fic answers while I'm still in the mindset
> 
> I'm leaning towards door #2, but god knows I'm going to write more in this AU eventually no matter what.

**Author's Note:**

> I write and edit everything on my phone, so please let me know if I've made any particularly terrible mistakes. All of your kudos and comments give me life!
> 
> come [tumblr ](http://www.bingitoff.Tumblr.com)with me

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Netflix and Chill](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8380096) by [RobinTrigue](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RobinTrigue/pseuds/RobinTrigue)




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